Interesting Course of Lectures to Suit the Times, at Concert Hall. The Executive Committee of the Social, Civil, and Statistical Association of the Colored People of Pennsylvania…

Philadelphia, 1865. Broadside, 9.875” x 8”.

An unrecorded broadside promoting a six-part lecture series near the end of the Civil War, featuring William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, author and suffragist Frances Harper, and others, the series organized by William Still, a leading black businessman in Philadelphia and a key figure in the Underground Railroad.

This course of lectures “from able advocates, (white and colored,) of equal rights and universal freedom” was held at Philadelphia’s Concert Hall, beginning in January of 1865. “Viewing the great changes going on with regard to their race,” the Association conceived of this lecture series having been “deeply impressed that rare opportunities at the present time present themselves for accomplishing a very great amount of good...As oppression has ground down the slave of the South, so likewise does prejudice and proscription weigh heavily upon the free colored man of the North; therefore, whatever tends to remove these evils, aids in elevating the race; hence, with the hope of removing prejudice in a measure, by properly enlightening the public mind, these lectures have been gotten up.”

All six of the speakers engaged for the series are listed here, including William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, F. E. Watkins Harper, Rev. Sella Martin, J. M. Langston, and Wm. D. Kelley. The proceeds were to be devoted to securing the rights of African Americans on the city passenger railways in Philadelphia; the effort to aid the freedmen; and to sick and wounded soldiers. The Concert Hall hosted a number of public meetings of those “opposed to the exclusion of respectable persons from the Passenger Railroad Cars, on the ground of complexion.” The eleven members of the Association’s Committee are listed at the bottom, including William Still, Chairman of the Committee of Arrangements, the founder of the Association, and the prime mover in the effort to secure passenger car rights.

Garrison’s opening lecture, “The Guilt, Punishment and Redemption of Our Country,” was to be delivered on January 16th, 1865. However, as Garrison reported in The Liberator on 20 Jan. 1865: “We were to have given the opening lecture on Monday evening last, but sudden prostration by chills and fever prevented. Happily, our absence was more than supplied, through the never-failing kindness of our eloquent coadjutor, George Thompson, Esq., who, though greatly worn by his labors in the lecturing field, readily consented to appear in our stead.”

Notices and advertisements for some of the lectures appeared in various newspapers of the day. Frances Harper’s talk, entitled “The Nation’s Great Opportunity,” was the subject of a racist and misogynistic notice in the Valley Spirit (Chambersburg, 22 March 1865), which gives some indication of what she was up against: "The tribe of female ranters, of which Miss Anna E. Dickinson is the type seems to be getting larger. Mrs. F. E. Watkins Harper has been speaking at Philadelphia, before a negro club… She is a negress. A Philadelphia Republican paper says that ‘several critics pronounce her equal to Miss Dickinson, and some give her credit for even greater merit.’ She is accompanied by ‘the Black Swan.’ … We shall soon have a pythoness, white or black, among the properties of every Loyal League in the country." The Black Swan was the stage-name of Elizabeth T. Greenfield (1809–1876), one of the best-known African American concert artists of her day, who regularly performed at the Concert Hall for such lectures and was lauded for her "remarkably sweet tones and wide vocal compass.”

According to the Intelligencer Journal (Lancaster, 20 Feb. 1865), Frederick Douglass “delivered the third lecture of the course before the Social Civil and Statistical Association of the Colored People of Pennsylvania, (Shades of Africa, what a name!) on last Thursday Evening…the audience listened with deep interest to Mr. Douglass for nearly two hours, while he discussed the important issues now presented to the American people in relation to the rights of his race, and urged the duty and importance of giving to them perfect ‘equality before the law.’” A notice for Rev. Sella Martin’s talk on the “The Friends of the Union in England,” delivered on Wednesday, January 25th, appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer on that day, the ‘Black Swan’ singing for his lecture as well.

The first streetcar line in Philadelphia opened in 1858; from then until 1867, trolleys did not allow black passengers, unless they stood on the front platform with the driver. After visiting Philadelphia in 1862, Frederick Douglass wrote: “Colored persons, no matter how well dressed or well-behaved, ladies or gentlemen, rich or poor, are not even permitted to ride on any of the many railways through that Christian City.” In 1859, William Still (1821–1902), who founded the Social, Civil and Statistical Association (to combat prejudice and promote racial equality), began his campaign for the rights of African Americans to ride on the cars. In an article that appeared in the North American and United States Gazette, Still asked why, in the "City of Brotherly Love," should those who are taxed to pay for highways be prohibited from using those very highways. In 1861, Still made a motion before the Executive Committee of the Association to draw up a petition in favor of the right of black citizens to ride the cars. By 1862, he gathered the signatures of some 360 prominent Philadelphians, including a number of Quakers, who rode on the front platform in solidarity. In 1867, after lobbying state lawmakers and gaining community support, the Pennsylvania Legislature passed an act prohibiting discrimination on public streetcars.

Abolitionist, suffragist, poet and speaker Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825–1911) was the first African American woman to publish a short story and a co-founder of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs, with Ida Wells-Barnett, Harriet Tubman, and others. Born free in Baltimore, Harper began writing anti-slavery literature in 1851 while living with the family of William Still, at the time a clerk at the Pennsylvania Abolition Society. After joining the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1853, Harper began her career as a public speaker for the Society. Following the death of her husband in 1864, she returned to the lecture circuit. In 1866, Harper delivered her famous address, “We Are All Bound Up Together,” before the National Women’s Rights Convention in New York, advocating for the inclusion of African American women in the fight for suffrage. This led to the creation of the American Equal Rights Association and the American Woman Suffrage Association.

No copies recorded in OCLC.

A rare broadside advertising this important effort to promote the civil rights of African Americans, conceived partly in response to the “great changes” wrought by emancipation and enlisting some of the most prominent black speakers of the day.

REFERENCES: Still, William. A Brief Narrative of the Struggle for the Rights of Colored People of Philadelphia in the City Railway Cars (Philadelphia, 1867); Haigis, John. William Still, Darby, and the Desegregation of Philadelphia Streetcars at darbyhistory.com; Turner, Diane D. William Still’s National Significance at stillfamily.library.temple.edu; Alexander, Kerri Lee. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper 1825-1911 at womenshistory.org; The Intelligencer Journal (Lancaster, PA, 20 Feb. 1865), p. 2; The Liberator (Boston, 20 Jan. 1865), p. 3; The Liberator (Boston, 27 Jan. 1865), p. 3; Valley Spirit (Chambersburg, PA, 22 March 1865), p. 1.

CONDITION: Expertly repaired tear through much of bottom half, reinforced on verso with Japanese tissue.