Mar 25, 2021 - Sale 2562

Sale 2562 - Lot 337

Price Realized: $ 812
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
"TROUBLE IN REFERENCE TO THE ADMISSION OF NEGROES INTO THE COLLEGE" (RECONSTRUCTION.) Joseph E. Brown. Letter describing his efforts to keep the University of Georgia segregated. Autograph Letter Signed to Colonel William Letcher Mitchell of Athens, GA. 2 pages, 9 3/4 x 7 1/2 inches; folds, integral blank removed; inked stamp reading "Collection of J.A. Riley" on second page. Np, circa 1873
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In 1872, the strictly segregated University of Georgia began receiving an annual $8,000 in funds as a land grant university. These were federal funds but distributed by the state legislature. The state was still under Reconstruction, so the Black community had the leverage to push for a fairer solution. The problem fell into the lap of Joseph E. Brown (1821-1894), who had served as governor of Georgia throughout the Civil War and had two Senate terms in his future, but was then out of office; he was also a long-time trustee of the University of Georgia. Brown quickly determined that the only politically feasible way to keep the universities segregated was to share some of that money by "giving them a separate institution of their own." Here is his remarkable letter in full:

"Private note. Dear Col.: I see the prospect of trouble in reference to the admission of negroes into the college. They are determined to claim admition and if it is denied, they will all take position against the payment of the annual sum of $8,000. I am doing all I can to ward off the blow, as I am quite sure it is a serious matter. I see but one chance to get rid of the difficulty, and that is to give them a separate institution of their own, and give them an annual appropriation also. This will be opposed by some of our people, but it is that or worse, in my opinion. Among others, this is one reason why I cannot attend the meeting of the Board. I am giving some attention to the matter to keep down any bad [?] in the subject that may break up the college. If the present legislature should couple the appropriation with a condition that colored students be admitted, I see at once the trouble that would follow. Our southern youth will not patronize the college if they are admitted, and it w'd be very difficult to keep the college in a prosperous condition without the annual appropriation. With assurances that I shall at all times do all I can for the college, and with kindest regards to your family, I am as ever your friend."

In 1874, the Georgia legislature began an annual $8,000 appropriation to the all-Black Atlanta University to start their own land grant program, exactly as Brown had proposed.