Feb 27, 2007 - Sale 2105

Sale 2105 - Lot 183

Price Realized: $ 6,480
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 4,000 - $ 6,000
AN EDUCATOR'S RICH ARCHIVE (EDUCATION.) BARKSDALE-BROWN, ELLA. Large, rich archive from an educator, suffragette and anti-lynching activist. Hundreds of pieces: includes speeches, letters, brochures, pamphlets, flyers, several scarce African-American periodicals, a number of university-related items; a typed note from Booker T. Washington; ephemera from the Frederick Douglass Film Company; a quantity of material regarding the welfare of colored troops during WWI (The Circle for Negro War Relief), and much more. should be seen. New Jersey and other places, vd [1911-30s]

Additional Details

Ella Barksdale-Brown was one of the first six graduates of the Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary (later re-named Spelman Seminary and subsequently re-named Spelman College), and a New Jersey resident. A community activist and organizer, she was in contact with many other organizers at the Negro colleges around the country. Among the correspondence from other activists is a letter from a friend at Tuskegee Institute that describes in detail the funeral of Booker T. Washington.
Mrs. Brown was very active in the Circle for Negro War Relief and there is a great deal of material relative to that organization. She was also very concerned with education, and there are numerous letters, periodicals and brochures sent to her from various colleges, including Spelman, Atlanta University, Rice Institute, and others. She spoke on the subject of civil rights and there are several speeches of hers including a portion of one that begins: "Every thinking man will concede that never since he became a citizen has loyalty to the American flag been so difficult a task for the black man." concerning the East St. Louis riot of 1917.
Included is a four page ALS from Paul Robeson dated October 10, 1916, apologizing for not having replied to a dinner invitation: "I had injured my ankle in football just a couple of days before and it gave me much pain . . ." Ella Barksdale-Brown is one of many men and women who have over the decades worked tirelessly for the improvement of the race, but whose names today are all but forgotten.