Heading: (1885-1899 John Brown Grave and Frederick Douglass Monument)
Author:
Title: John Brown Grave and Frederick Douglass Monument
Place Published:
Publisher:
Date Published: ca. 1881-85
Description:

“A Sketch of The Life of John Brown” (No date or place; ca. 1881-85, according to WorldCat) Small 4 x 6 inch booklet, 12pp. with no lettering on outer wrappers, apparently as issued, and drawing of Brown opposite title-page.

“Frederick Douglass…Monument / Douglass Park…Rochester, New York…Corner-stone Laid, July 20, 1898 / Unveiled, June 9, 1899”. Leaflet commemorating the Monument unveiling. Stiff paper, 2pp. front and verso. 4 x 9 ins

A small handout for “the numerous visitors to the hero’s grave” at North Elba, New York, “who ask many questions about himself and his family….” Predates by many years the placing of a plaque at the abolitionist martyr’s gravesite by white and Black admirers in 1916, and an annual pilgrimage to the gravesite arranged by the NAACP in 1924.

Photos of Douglass, who died in Rochester four years earlier, and of the Monument and list of Monument Committee members, many of whom were Black, including nationally-prominent journalist T.T. Fortune, militant editor of the nation’s leading Black newspaper and ghost writer of Booker T. Washington’s autobiography. Memorabilia of the increasing interest in, and reverence for, the anti-slavery movement of mid-century.

very good