Antebellum Black Philadelphia and Free Black Regions

We begin our tour with the idea that Philadelphia operated as a de facto capital of a free Black region from 1800-1860. Free Black towns in Pennsylvania and Southern New Jersey operated as outlying suburbs for commercial, educational and political activities to support the building of infrastructure for emancipation and sanctuary.

Free Black people traveled freely in this area and to and from the North to Newark, NJ, New York and Boston.

This tour will walk through the physical space of The Black Metropolis with emphasis on activities that involved movement to and from the regions.

See the  regional map in more detail here 

Ideas needed to be printed to spread far and wide.

The African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church started printing hymnals as early as 1837 and expanded into newspaper and book printing here at 631 Pine Street.

The AME Book Concern was one of the first African American owned book shops in the nation. The Christian Recorder, printed here starting in 1854 and still in publication, is the oldest African American newspaper in the country.

Read books published by the AME Book Concern  here .

The Colored Convention movement began in Philadelphia in 1830.

As a hub of Black entrepreneurship, intellectual thought leadership, education and emancipation activities, Philadelphia was a logical place for hundreds of delegates to travel safely and comfortably to the conference.

Conventions were in Philadelphia for the next 3 years in Philadelphia. See t he Colored Conventions Project for great information  on the conventions.

The following words by Chaplain T.G. Steward, buried interestingly within a 1904 book about colored troops, gives first hand insight into the impact of the conventions.

"It is difficult to estimate the bold and daring spirit which inaugurated the Colored Convention of 1830. It was the right move, originating in the right quarter and at the right time"

"In looking to the important results that grew out of this convention, the independence of thought and self-assertion of the black man are the most remarkable. Then, the union of purpose and union of strength which grew out of the acquaintanceship and mutual pledges of colored men from different States."  Chaplain T.G. Steward 

Amelia Shad was a Black woman entrepreneur who ran her own boarding house at 178 Pine (now 610 Pine).

Prior to  The Green Book , newspapers like The Liberator were where Black people could find safe spaces to stay when coming into Philadelphia from the outside regions.

Amelia Shad's boarding house was a popular venue to delegates of the 1830,1831,1832 and 1833 Colored Conventions that were held in Philadelphia.

Visit the  Colored Convention Project  to learn more.

See the  early photo record here at PhillyHistory.Org. 

There were 16 Black families on Pine between 5th and 7th streets in 1838.

Cyrus Black lived at 172 Pine along with the McKenssey family. He was an organizer of the first Colored Convention. Just like today, cities compete for prominence and Black leaders in Philadelphia ran to outpace New York to be the first to hold the Colored Convention in 1830.

Black is mentioned in this excerpt from The Colored Regulars in the US Army, 1904, Printed by the AME Book Concern.

"The Bishop added, 'My dear child, we must take some action immediately, or else these New Yorkers will get ahead of us.'...and a committee consisting of Bishop Allen, Benjamin Pascal, Cyrus Black, James Cornish and Junius C. Morel, were appointed to lay the matter before the colored people of Philadelphia. This committee, led, doubtless, by Bishop Allen, at once issued a call for a convention of the colored men of the United States, to be held in the city of Philadelphia on the 15th of September, 1830." (Page  47 ).

The 1838 PAS Census lists 23 public and private schools. Public education began in 1818 in Philadelphia but due to racial discrimination, the first Black public school didn't open until three years later, on St. Mary's Street. The Pennsylvania Abolition Society was instrumental in pushing city officials to fund a Black public school.

The school, however, was in such bad shape by the mid 1820s that two anonymous Black women wrote a scathing article in the Freedom's Journal decrying the state of Black public education.

This set off a series of changes where Black public schooling was centralized in the Lombard Street School in 1828. James Bird served two stints as principal and the school is also known as 'Bird's school'.

In 1840 city officials moved to effectively close the school and James Forten led a committee that successfully organized to keep the school open. (Silcox, Page  456 ). In the late 1890s the school was renamed the James Forten Elementary Manual Training School.

Silcox argues that the 1842 riots caused an educational decline where eventually Black teachers decided to take Black education back into their hands. Soon after 1842, we see the rise of Black literary societies, the Institute for Colored Youth and other private Black schools.

For more on this see  Silcox. 

School interior photo courtesy of  PhillyHistory.org , a project of the Philadelphia Department of Records. School exterior from  The Public School Buildings of the City of Philadelphia.  

Black Baptist congregations were originally started in 1809 with the founding of First African Baptist but struggled and split without a permanent leader. The arrival of Reverend James Burrows in 1832 seemed to stop the splitting of the congregations.

Burrows was freed when his free cousins John and Samuel Bivins put themselves back in bondage to pay for Rev. Burrows freedom. Burrows moved to Philadelphia, worked and sent the money to free his cousins, who came to live with him in Philadelphia.

There were already three Baptist congregations by the time Burrows arrived. Union Baptist was the 3rd. Reverend Daniel Scott led the congregation.

This was the first site of Union Baptist and it had a seating capacity of 500, and a burial yard. Prior to meeting here, the congregation met at Benezet Hall.

Eventually the church outgrew this first location, moved to 711 South 12th Street, and became a very large, well-funded important church institution. Notably Union Baptist was the home church of Marian Anderson.

This site was sold to the city of Philadelphia when the church moved. The City demolished the church and burial ground to create more room for the school in 1905. It's possible that the people buried here were re-interred to Eden Cemetery, but there is no mention of that in the real estate notice.

Despite it's historic significance, an an appeal for historical designation,  the 12th street church site was demolished .

Source:  Union Baptist Church Nomination, Philadelphia Historical Commission. 

Map courtesy  PhilaGeoHistory.org 

Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E) church functions as the spiritual, political, social and political center of the 1838 Black Metropolis.

Its sits on the oldest parcel of continuously Black owned land in the country.

If Philadelphia was the capital of a free Black region, Mother Bethel AME was the Capitol building.

Just like today, there were multiple schools of thought about how society should function and how emancipation should be secured. This resulted in a church splits that are visible from the corner of 6th and Lombard.

A stone's throw from Mother Bethel sits what was once Wesley Methodist ('Big Wesley') and down the alley another Methodist church known as 'Little Wesley'.

Despite factionalism, "A different black politics matured in Philadelphia. Black men and women created their own institutional world." ( Van Gosse, page 57 ).

Church elections, small claims courts, social courts, public meetings, conventions all happened at Mother Bethel AME. Mother Bethel AME sent missionaries to the Caribbean, the American South and Africa, extending the flow of information through the global Black diaspora and encouraging a sense of a global Black identity.

As a Free Black city, The Black Metropolis was in active resistance to the global commodities markets financed by the mortgaging of Black bodies in chattel slavery..though its very existence.

Opposition to Black stability and wealth rose violently in Philadelphia starting in 1834.

From 1834-1842 The Black Metropolis was attacked by mobs of white men 5 times:

•  1834 - Flying Horses - August 

•  1835 -Stewart- August  

•  1838 - Pennsylvania Hall  - May 

•  1842 - Lombard Street - August 

•  1849 - California House - November 

Homes were burned, churches and institutions were destroyed, people were raped, maimed and killed.  The history of this violence has been hidden within the word 'race riot'.  A riot is an unorganized chaotic aggression from two or more equally aggressive parties.  In these riots, white mobs marched into the Black community armed with bats with intention to inflict damage and terrorize the community. Using the term 'riot' is a misnomer bordering on erasure of culpability.  Therefore, we use the term 'Mob Attack.'

1842 was by far the worst attack with wide ranging and long-term effects. A parade organized by Black men who had become sober and joined the Temperance organizations and by the Young Men's Vigilance Committe was attacked on August 1, 1842. This turned into three days of destruction and bloodshed.

It's often lost in the conversation that the parade itself demonstrates remarkable attributes of Black society in 1838; organized social support for individual growth, awareness of a global Black identity, and Black boycotting and economic power (against the liquor sellers).

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Solomon Clarkson owned this home at 623 Lombard Street. Clarkson came to Philadelphia in 1838 as a freedom seekers. He found work with Peter Barker who together with Isaac Hopper of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, eventually paid his enslaver to ensure his manumission.

Clarkson continued to work for Barker after his emancipation and went to school in New Jersey in 1812, in his late 20s.

He became the head of a school funded by Thomas Bray in the 1830s and 1840s. During the 1830s Clarkson's school became a magnet for children of the Black elite. The school was located on St. Mary's Street (now Rodman), so it was colloquially referred to as St. Mary's school.

Sources

Photo of Listing of schools for Black children from the Pennsylvania Abolition Society Collection, AMS 136, Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

Photo of Lombard Street in 1959 Courtesy  PhillyHIstory.com 

 https://archive.org/details/623-lombard-a-house-with-history-jan-15-2021 

Henrietta Duterte was born and raised in The Black Metropolis on middle alley. She was a member of the Bowers family.

She married Haitian immigrant Francis Duterte. Tragically, all four of their children died in infancy. And then Francis died. She continued to run the undertaker business founded by Francis and became the first American woman mortician. She is famously known for hiding freedom seekers in coffins as a way for them to have passage further North.

History is often preserved within physical spaces and so it's disheartening to see that whole city block where Duterte's parlour was located, has been lost.

The block between 6th and 7th and Lombard and St Mary's (Now Rodman) in 1858 was razed and is now Starr Garden.

Interestingly, Google Maps still shows the outline of the old block; almost like a ghost city.

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We stop at 7th and Lombard to discuss a shelter by Black women for Black women.

By 1842 the temperance movement had a head start in the Black Metropolis. The American Moral Reform Society, founded as an outgrowth of the 1830 Colored Convention, encouraged restraint from sexual 'licentiousness' and complete sobriety ("temperance").

Hetty Reckless, a leader in the Female Anti-Slavery Society and the Female Vigilant Committee, and Hetty Burr, Abolitionist and leader in the Moral Reform Society, founded a shelter for women at 7th and Lombard.

Over 200 women were said to have come to the shelter, learned a trade and moved into positive outcomes for their lives.

The shelter also housed an adult education school which William Still attended when he first came to Philadelphia.

The 1842 mob attack was incredibly violent. Some scholars make the argument that the attacks were planned (see scholarship  here  and  here ). They argue that the activity was organized with intention to terrorize the Black community.

The site of 7th below Lombard had been a meeting hall location for the Black Metropolis from 1832 through at least 1848 and possibly longer. The 1 832 Colored Convention , The  Hiram Lodge of Prince Hall Masons  and the  Union Baptist Church , amongst others, used the site for meetings.

In 1834, it was known as 'Benezet Hall'. During the August mob attacks,  Benezet Hall  was where  Black masons put up defenses  and prepared to fight back from the hall. The situation was eventually diffused.

By 1842, the hall was called 'Beneficial Hall' and Stephen Smith  apparently was making updates to the existing structure . The site was again the scene of mob violence that  The Anti-Slavery Reporter  indicates may have had prior planning.

At 9:15 pm on August 1, 1842, the hall was set on fire.

At 10:00 pm, the African Presbyterian Church led by Stephen Gloucester, one block away, was completely burned down as well.

This was the second time the Presbyterian church had been burned down by mobs in less than 10 years. The First African Presbyterian Church was on 7th and Bainbridge in 1834 when mobs tore it down. This church was where Black Presbyterianism began and it was where Stephen Gloucester's father John Glouscester was the Pastor.

Despite these losses, the Black Metropolis  rebuilt a few feet south of the site in 1848  when a group of benevolent societies joined together to fund a new hall at 512 South 7th Street.

The Black Metropolis had Black people of all classes living in close proximity to each other. Bradford Alley was once home to 26 Black families, 98 people total with 29 children, 11 of whom were in school.

They had occupations like laborer, painter, day worker and seamstress.

For example, Rhodes Black, a porter, and his wife, a dressmaker, and 3 children lived here. He owned his home and attended Mother Bethel.

See  the data for the people here 1838 .

On August 2, 1842, the residents of Bradford Alley protected themselves with guns against the same mob that burned down Benezet Hall. William Roberts shot three white men.

The mob advanced and ransacked the homes on Bradford Alley, beating Roberts almost to death. The violence, destruction and bloodshed continued on into the evening.

The Institute for Colored Youth can be thought of as one of the first Black universities in the country. Students were required to learn Latin, Greek and advanced Mathematics.  See how you do on the exam questions from 1862. 

Important educators set the bar here for Black Education and these included Fanny Jackson Coppin, an Oberlin graduate, who wrote  Reminiscences of School Life and Hints on Teaching , a book of her teaching methods and ideology that set the tone for future educators.

 Coppin State University  in Maryland is named after her.

This was the first site for the school, opened in 1852. The school eventually outgrew this location and moved to the Bainbridge street location. Robert Purvis, Stephen Smith and others bought the buildings and converted them into Liberty Hall.

Jacob C. White Sr.'s activities are illustrative of the flow of funding for spaces of sanctuary from wealthy Black Philadelphians to the regions and back again.

Jacob C. White Sr. purchased parcels of land in New Jersey specifically to create freedom towns where freedom seekers could find safe haven. His purchase of land in Snow Hill, New Jersey, was later called Free Haven and is now called Lawnside.

Lawnside is home to the  Peter Mott house , a preserved Underground Railroad site run by Black Conductor Peter Mott.

Jacob C. White, Jr. was also a political, intellectual and social leader in the Black Metropolis noted for founding The Banneker Institute, the Pythians Black Baseball Club (along with Octavius Catto), and organizing in the Pennsylvania Equal Rights League. He attended the Lombard Street School and graduated from ICY. He taught briefly at ICY before he became principal at the Roberts Vaux Consolidated School.

His office was on 715 and 717 Lombard street, directly across from ICY.

The Black church in all its forms started, took root and proliferated throughout the Black Metropolis. In 1838 there were 17 Black churches in the PAS Census. Many of those congregations, like  The African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas ,  Mother Bethel A.M.E  ,  Lombard Central , and  Union Baptist  still exist today.

The Lombard Street Presbyterian Church has roots going back to the late 1770's when the First African Presbyterian Church was built at the corner of 7th and Bainbridge.

The Lombard Central Church building was the church home of William Still, and W.H. Dorsey and was visited by Harriet Tubman. It was built in 1844 and continued to be used until the church moved to West Philadelphia in 1939.

Church founder Stephen Glouscester and his wife were buried in a vault in front of the church, marked by an obelisk monument. When the church moved in 1939, the Glouscesters were not re-interred. Eventually the obelisk disappeared.

In 2008,  Naomi Alter-Ohayon and Isaac Ohayon  paid for archeologists to excavate the stone vault where the Glouscesters were buried and worked with the West Philadelphia Lombard Central church to reinter the remains in Old Pine Presbyterian Church.