(POLITICS) Fields James B Small archive of a Colorado minist

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(POLITICS.) Fields, James B. Small archive of a Colorado minister's efforts to gain employment as a Republican stump speaker. Two Autograph Letters Signed by Fields, one petition, one business card, and one printed broadside; condition generally strong. Denver, CO, 1884 and undated

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James B. Fields (1850-1896) was born into slavery in Missouri, escaped in 1862, and was ordained as a minister in 1878. He assumed leadership of the Zion Baptist Church in Denver, CO in 1881. Here he writes 3 letters to the Republican National Committee offering his services for James Blaine's presidential campaign. The first letter, dated 16 June 1884, offers to work "in behalf of that Grand Old Party through whose instrumentality the shackles of bondage were stricken from four millions of my people and race." He requests the committee to match his $1500 annual salary so he could "take the stump & maintain it from now until after the election in any territory or state to which I would be directed or assigned." The letter is docketed on the final blank "probably a colored man." Rev. Fields followed up with a petition in his own hand dated 21 July and signed by more than 50 prominent Coloradans, urging the Republicans to hire "Rev. J.B. Fields, the popular colored lecturer, historian & preacher . . . as one of the Blaine & Logan speakers during the campaign," along with his own 23 July cover letter. Also enclosed with this lot are his business card and a large letterpress broadside announcing his lecture: "Infidelity Answered and Refuted: The Bible, its Divine Origin Proven . . . by Elder J.B. Fields," with dozens of testimonials, printed in Denver by C.J. Kelly, 27 3/4 x 8 3/4 inches. We trace no other copies of this early Colorado broadside on OCLC. Taken together, this group offers a unique glimpse at an African-American clergyman who had gained an unusual degree of support from his city's white Republican establishment. Whether he was actually hired by the campaign, we do not know.