1501

Aiding to brake [sic] the bonds of oppr

Currency:USD Category:Antiques Start Price:1,500.00 USD Estimated At:1,900.00 - 2,200.00 USD
Aiding to brake [sic] the bonds of oppr
Aiding to brake [sic] the bonds of oppression.... Important A.L.S., 4 pp., from black abolitionist Charles Henry Langston (grandfather of poet and author Langston Hughes), to Benjamin Coates, a Philadelphia Quaker. Written from Oberlin (Ohio), June 8, 1859. After serving a twenty-day term in Cuyahoga County Jail, Langston thanks Coates for his donation which he hopes to use for publishing his speech in pamphlet form, which "as you are pleased to think...would promote the cause of humanity...Have not paid my fine which...amounts to about a thousand dollars. I shall return to Cleveland...and resume my duties as secretary and business agent of the Ohio State Anti-Slavery Society." Charles and his brother attended Oberlin College, the first college in the U.S. to accept Negro students. Before he was 16, he was already teaching, and subsequently became a dentist. Involved in rescue of a slave, John Price, in what became known as the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue, Charles was jailed, and visited by John Brown on his way to Harpers Ferry. Brown's raid took place in October of that year. Langston's work in the abolitionist movement led him from Oberlin, a center for the underground railroad, to Kansas, where his activities included help for the contrabands, recruitment of black soldiers for the Union, establishment of a food store, and black suffrage. He concludes his letter: "Liberty and humanity to me have no particular location, no color, no country...I am willing to do as much for the slave in Africa as for the slave in the United States." Highly significant letter with threads to numerous leaders of the abolitionist movement, Ohio and Missouri as its centers - pro and con: John Brown and Pres. Lincoln who refused to repeal the Fugitive Slave Law. With notebook of 17 printed pages of research on Langston and his work. Letter in very fine condition, darkly penned. Scarce and important.