Reading room of the Schomburg Collection, 1938–1945
Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases by Ida B. Wells, 1892
Joseph Sidney (active 1809)
An Oration Commemorative of the Abolition of the Slave Trade in the United States: Delivered Before the Wilberforce Philanthropic Association, in the City of New-York on the Second of January, 1809
New York: Printed for the author. J. Seymour, printer, 1809
Sidney Lapidus Slavery and Abolition Collection, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
An Oration Commemorative of the Abolition of the Slave Trade in the United States: Delivered Before the Wilberforce Philanthropic Association, in the City of New-York on the Second of January, 1809
Founded in New York City in 1808 and named in honor of the British politician and antislavery activist William Wilberforce, the Wilberforce Philanthropic Association (later Society) was one of several mutual aid societies that members of the free Black community in the Northeast established. The organization supported widows, orphans, and those unable to work, and fostered community through gatherings and celebrations.
On January 2, 1809, the Association organized a grand event to celebrate the one-year-and-a-day anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade. The event featured a band, specially composed hymns, a procession, a fundraising campaign to benefit the Manumission Society, and a keynote address by Joseph Sidney, a local cooper who had been living in New York for at least 10 years. Sidney intended his lecture, documented in this slender pamphlet, to uplift his listeners by celebrating achievements while calling for emancipation.
Self-published for distribution to members of the association, this is one of a few surviving copies. It is part of the Sidney Lapidus Slavery and Abolition Collection, an important resource of primary materials donated to The New York Public Library in 2014.
: Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, Schomburg Center for Research in…
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