Joseph Daniel Sterling

Joseph Sterling in 1919

**Joseph Daniel Sterling** (c. 1860 - September 26, 1965) was an emancipated African American who worked with Garfield Lucas Webster to advance his progressive crusade. However, Sterling had conflicts with Webster over the inclusion of black people, but Sterling successfully pushes Webster for policies that would improve the lives of Black Chawosaurians, such as the right to be included into Chawosaurian Boarding Schools. Webster helped Sterling fight for black workers in New England by helping Sterling formed the United League of Colored Recruits to embrace black membership in labor unions, something Webster first resisted.

Joseph Daniel Sterling was born into slavery around 1860 somewhere in the Southern United States, but at age 3, he was emancipated alongside his family by the Emancipation Proclamation, dodging the unpleasant fate suffered by slave children of being sold away from their parents by force to serve another plantation. During Reconstruction, he witnessed his father being lynched by the Ku Klux Klan but managed to hide from them. Sterling escaped from the Jim Crow regime up to the Northern United States in pursuit for a better life as many southern African Americans have, and Sterling sought work in Boston, then stumbled upon Garfield Lucas Webster's trade union firm in 1883, Webster at first refused to hire Sterling because he was black, and Webster wasn't looking to welcome Black Americans to his cause, but Sterling managed to use his charm to convince Webster to accept him and his people to join his cause, and Webster fell for his charm. Webster hires Sterling. Webster was surprised and stunned by Sterling's intellect and skills that he originally didn't think black men were capable of having and started to depend more on Sterling, but Webster and Sterling still had clashes over issues such as civil rights and race equality, which Webster greatly opposed at the time. Sterling is greatly responsible for Garfield Webster's shifting racial views that Webster struggled to change without strong internal resistance.

Sterling helped elevated Webster's rise to power over Chawosaurian politics, Sterling easily sympathized with Webster's clubbed foot disorder in a time period of widespread ignorance against handicapped people for an obvious reason, and Sterling taught Webster to use his disability to see himself in a black man's shoes, and Webster began his transition from a white supremacist to an anti-racist by the time of Webster's death in 1955. Sterling gained a personal connection to Webster and Webster, unusual in his time, asked Sterling first for policy making decision moments. Webster became Prime Minister of the Empire of Chawosauria in 1910 and once again fought Webster over civil rights of Black Chawosaurians under his prime ministership, it took Webster's disgust with Red Summer to move Webster into Sterling's direction on civil rights. Webster left office in 1919, therefore retiring, and Sterling fought for civil rights for the rest of his life.

When Webster was living in dying days from a severe brain cancer, Sterling felt the moral obligation to go to Alaska to comfort Webster, Sterling was able to get a personal closeup to the dying Webster and empathized with Webster's unease with his looming fate, Sterling worked hard to keep Webster on his feet and try to distract Webster from the thought of death to make his last days happy. On Webster's death bed, Sterling gave Webster a farewell hug and by Christmas morning in 1955, Webster was gone. Sterling was returning to New York greatly heartbroken and right before leaving, Eleanora McClellan-Webster, Webster's daughter-in-law and former god-daughter, gave Sterling a letter that Webster personally wrote to Sterling the day before his passing, and Sterling had the letter framed on his wall next to wall candles intended to honor Webster.

After Webster's death, Sterling was able to see the black community in the United States saw a major and significant advancement of their civil rights as a result of the Civil Rights Movement, resulting in the fall of the Jim Crow south and a new tide for human rights in the United States. Sterling died on September 26, 1965, at age 105, in Saranac Lake, and the Webster-McClellan Family had Sterling buried at Saxe-Coburg and Gotha Cemetery with Garfield Webster after consulting with the Sterling family.