(CIVIL RIGHTS) KELLEY WILLIAM DARRAH Why Colored People in P

Sale 2377 - Lot 278

Price Realized: $ 750

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200

(CIVIL RIGHTS.) KELLEY, WILLIAM DARRAH. Why Colored People in Philadelphia are Excluded from the Street Cars. 27 pages. 8vo, modern marbled paper-covered boards with morocco label up the spine; original front wrapper bound in. Philadelphia: Benjamin Bacon, 1866

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first edition. "January 7, 1866 was reputed to be one of the coldest days recorded in Philadelphia; the thermometer at the Merchant's Exchange fell to below zero. This was no colder than the reception of the Negro veterans of the War who found that they had been permitted to serve in the army but could not ride the trolleys in Philadelphia. Some violence, but much embarrassment followed.' After appeals to 'Liberality, Benevolence and love of Freedom" had fallen on deaf ears, lawyer-abolitionist Horace Binney wrote to the capital: 'Colored people pay more taxes than is paid by the same class in any other Northern city.' Finally the Legislature in Harrisburg, no friend to the Negro or Philadelphia, ruled that Negroes could ride the trolleys in the 'City of Brotherly Love.' The irony of this act of desegregation was that Harrisburg did it to spite Philadelphia liberals. Negro History, #172; Blockson 4375; Afro-Americana 5505.