?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
(CIVIL RIGHTS--WHITE SUPPREMACY.) FELTON, REBECCA LATIMER (MRS. W.H. FELTON). Autograph Letter Signed, to Governor W.J. Northern, June 7, 1899. 6 4to pages, written on rectos only; paper evenly toned; a couple of tiny chips; corrections throughout * [together with] a copy of Governor Northern's pamphlet, "The Negro at the South," 17 pages, 8vo, original wrappers. Atlanta, 1894. Atlanta, June 7, 1899, 1894
Rebecca Latimer Felton (1835-1930), white supremacist, pro-lynching advocate, suffragette, and member of the State Senate (1922) writes at length to then Governor William J. Northern, reformer and anti-lynching advocate. She thanks him for the opportunity to critique his recent speech in Boston (apparently sent her in printed form). Felton's letter is filled with references to black men as rapists. In the pamphlet accompanying this letter, Northern answers a number of letters sent him, about lynching, citing Ida B. Wells, (1862-1931) the noted black woman journalist who exposed the myth of the black man as rapist. It was Wells who exposed the enormous number of lynchings that were being carried out, not only in the South but in states like Ohio and even New Jersey. Comparisons of Ida Wells and Rebecca Felton have been made, the one being the antithesis of the other.
