FAMOUS CIVIL RIGHTS CASE (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 wrappers bound in; some light wear, short archival repair to the upper left corner of the front wrapper. Philadelphia: Benjamin Bacon, 1866
first edition. "January 7, 1866 was reputed to be the coldest day ever known in Philadelphia; the thermometer at the Merchant's Exchange fell to eighteen 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 on 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 here than is paid by the same class in any other Northern city." Finally, the Legislature in Harrisburg, no friend to either 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 this to spite the Philadelphia liberals, not out of any altruism. Negro History, #172; Blockson, 4375; Afro-Americana, 5505.
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