Titanic Tribute // A Titanic Fansite

19 Jul 2009	Haitian-born man was the Titanic's only-known black passenger
When W. Mae Kent watched the 1997 "Titanic" movie with Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, the film captured her imagination, but she walked out of the theater with a question on her mind. "Where are the black folks?" asked Kent, who thought a black person in 1912 would be hired to wash dishes, shine shoes or shovel coal. A month or so later, Kent was listening to the "Tom Joyner Morning Show" on her drive to work when the radio personality gave his listeners a little-known black history fact: Joseph Phillipe Lemercier Laroche was a black passenger aboard that ill-fated vessel. "I almost swerved off the road," said Kent, who started taking quick notes upon hearing Joyner. It took 12 years of on and off work, but Kent wrote her second novel and published her first book earlier this year. She called the novel "Titanic: The Untold Story." Kent's work is believed to be the only book based on the fact that a black man was on the Titanic, a little-known piece of history. When Kent got home, she started looking on the Internet and found that Ebony magazine had run an article on Laroche. She also looked for books on the ship. When Kent started her research, she did not know if any images of Laroche existed. She later discovered that Ebony magazine had printed a picture of Laroche. Fortunately, her husband of 38 years, Lee A. Kent, collects Ebony and Jet magazines, so the Ebony issue with Laroche's picture was in her basement. Kent spent at least three months just researching Laroche. After that, she kept coming across the same information on Laroche, which makes her think she found all that there was to find. French researcher Olivier Mendez and the Massachusetts-based Titanic Historical Society are credited with first uncovering the information about Laroche . Born in 1886 in Cap-Haitien, Haiti, Laroche traveled to France to study engineering when he was 15. He married his white wife, Juliette, in March 1908. In France, Laroche expected to find employment as an engineer. He did find work, but prejudice in the early 20th century kept him poorly paid. The couple had their first daughter, Simonne, in 1909, but their second daughter, Louise, was born premature and frail and suffered from many medical problems in her first years, according to the Titanic Historical Society. When Laroche discovered his wife was pregnant with their third child, he decided his family would leave France and return to Haiti. Laroche didn't intend to travel on the Titanic, Kent said. "His mother sent him pre-paid tickets on Le France, but the ship wouldn't allow children to dine with their parents," said Kent. First-class tickets for the French liner were exchanged for second-class tickets aboard the British luxury liner. The Laroche family boarded the Titanic on April 10, 1912, in Cherbourg, France. The Titanic was so large that it anchored in the harbor while smaller ships carried passengers and their luggage from the terminal to the liner, according to the Titanic Historical Society. Laroche, then 26, was one of the 166 second-class passengers who died when the boat sank April 15, 1912. His wife and daughters survived. When Kent sat down to write her book, she based her main protagonist, Nathan Badeau Legarde, on Laroche. About 50 percent of Kent's fictional story is true, she said. Kent speculates that Laroche kept to himself. Judith Geller, the author of "Titanic: Women and Children First," wrote in her 1998 book "that nowhere in the copious 1912 press descriptions of the ship and the interviews with the survivors was the presence of a black family among the passengers ever mentioned." This is a reason why the presence of a black man on the ship was unknown for decades. When Kent wrote her book, she made Legarde more outgoing. She switched Haiti as the place of birth for Laroche to New Orleans, La., for Legarde, so he would be returning to his native country. Kent included other real-life Titanic passengers in her book, including Thomas Andrews Jr., Captain Edward J. Smith and American socialite Molly Brown. BookSurge Publishing, the self-publishing arm of amazon.com, made Kent's book available earlier this year. Kent said she is negotiating with a traditional book publisher to place it on store shelves. Besides the sense of accomplishment the grandmother of four feels, Kent believes it's important people know a black man was on the Titanic. "From some reason, he (Laroche) wasn't represented in the movie. Opulence, wealth, class, people of color weren't considered to have class no matter how rich they were," said Kent, who quoted the Bible with the words "my people perish for lack of knowledge." "Black people don't know our history well enough. ... When all you know is negative, it makes you feel less than," she said. source: pressofatlanticcity.com
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