Last updated: July 24, 2020
Place
Center City West Commercial Historic District
Courtesy of the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/75696517/
Quick Facts
Location:
Roughly bounded by Chestnut, Fifteenth, Walnut, Sansom & Twenty-first Sts., Philadelphia, PA
Significance:
In October 1855, Philadelphia hosted the National Convention of the Free People of Color. Delegates primarily gathered at Franklin Hall on 6th Street, below Arch Street.
Designation:
National Register of Historic Places
In October 1855, Philadelphia hosted the National Convention of the Free People of Color. Delegates primarily gathered at Franklin Hall on 6th Street, below Arch Street.[1] However, the first evening session occurred at the Young Man’s Institute, also known as the Philadelphia City Institute. The Philadelphia City Institute later became a branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia. No longer standing, the Institute sat at the northeast corner of Chestnut and 18th Streets, in what is now the Center City West Commercial Historic District. On January 7, 1988, the Center City West Commercial Historic District was listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
Within a year after Congress’s passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, Mary Ann and her family relocated to Canada West, now known as Ontario. The Shadd family helped people to escape enslavement and could be punished harshly for it under the Fugitive Slave Law. This law mandated the capture and return of freedom seekers even in the free states, and imposed harsh penalties for those who helped people avoid capture.
While living in Canada, Mary Ann began her own newspaper, the Provincial Freeman. She was the first Black woman publisher and editor in North America. In the paper, Mary Ann promoted anti-slavery, temperance, and stories of successful emigration to Canada. The Provincial Freeman ran weekly from 1853 until 1857.
Mary Ann’s own emigration and her published support for the emigration of free Blacks to Canada was controversial. Opponents of emigration, including many of the members of the Free People of Color, argued that free Blacks should remain in the U.S. to fight for the abolition of slavery and racial equality. Resorting to emigration implied that true racial equality could not be achieved in the United States.
The proceedings for the conference reference the “spirited discussion” surrounding Mary Ann’s admission to the convention. Writing under the pseudonym Ethiop, William J. Wilson recounted the debate in Frederick Douglass’s Paper. Although he disagreed with Mary Ann on emigration, he wrote, “she is a superior woman; and it is useless to deny it.” This impression struck other delegates as well. After her speaking time elapsed, the delegates voted for Mary Ann to continue beyond the allotted ten minutes. In the end, with support from Frederick Douglass, the convention voted 38-23, to accept Mary Ann as a corresponding member. She was the sole convention delegate from Canada.
Notes:
[1] Franklin Hall is no longer standing.
[2] Mary Ann Shadd married Thomas F. Cary in Ontario West in 1856. Thomas Cary was a barber in Toronto and assisted Mary Ann with the Provincial Freeman.
Bibliography:
Conrad, Jessica and Samantha De Vera. “The Fight for Black Mobility: Traveling to Mid-Century Conventions.” Colored Conventions Project: Bringing 19th-Century Black Organizing to Digital Life. Accessed June 15, 2020. https://coloredconventions.org/black-mobility/.
Rhodes, Jane. Mary Ann Shadd Cary: The Black Press and Protest in the Nineteenth Century. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1998.
Pennsylvania SP Center City West Commercial Historic District. National Register of Historic Places and National Historic Landmarks Program Records: Pennsylvania; National Register of Historic Places and National Historic Landmarks Program Records, 2013-2017; Records of the National Park Service, 1785-2006, Record Group 79; Philadelphia County. Accessed June 172020. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71997126.