Page 168 - Swann Galleries - Printed & Manuscript African Americana- Sale 2308 - March 21, 2013

306 ● (EDUCATION.) LOCKE, ALAIN, ET AL. Group of six Bronze Booklets:
The Negro and His Music, by Alain Locke * The Negro in Art by Alain Locke
* The Negro in the Caribbean by Eric Williams * Negro Poetry and Drama by
Sterling Brown * The Negro and Economic Reconstruction by T. Arnold Hill *
The Negro in American Fiction by Sterling Brown. Small 8vo’s all in original
printed wrappers, except for the Negro in the Caribbean, in hard cover issue; some light
wear, wrappers of first title, slightly more so. SHOULD BE SEEN
Washington, D.C.: Associates in Negro Folk Education, 1936-1942 [1,000/1,500]
307 ● (EDUCATION.) TRUSTEES OF THE JOHN F. SLATER FUND. Group of
nine pamphlet studies, 1915-1935: Sketch of Bishop Atticus G. Haygood *
Suggested Course for County Training Schools * Reference List of Southern
Colored Schools * Reference List of Southern Colored Schools 2nd ed. *
Report on Negro Universities and Colleges * Early Effort for Industrial
Education * A Study of Training Schools for Negroes in the South * The Slater
and Jeans Funds, an Educator’s Approach to a Difficult Social Problem * Public
Secondary Schools for Negroes in the Southern United States. Uniform 8vo’s,
condition varies slightly. SHOULD BE SEEN. Vp, 1915-1935 [600/800]
The John F. Slater Fund for the Education of Freedmen was created in the United States in
1882 for the encouragement of industrial education among negroes in the South.
308 ● (EDUCATION.) SUMNER, CHARLES. The Argument of Charles
Sumner, Esq. Against the Constitutionality of Separate Colored Schools in the
Case of Sarah C. Roberts vs The City of Boston. Before the Supreme Court of
Mass. Dec. 4, 1849. 32 pages. 8vo, original printed salmon wrappers; small chip to top
right corner of the front cover; short, closed tear to the corner of the rear.
Boston: Roberts, 1849 [1,000/1,500]
A STEPPING STONE CASE IN THE LONG HISTORY OF SCHOOL DESEGREGATION. Roberts
vs. Boston (1848-1849) concerned a five year old African-American girl, Sarah Roberts who
was enrolled in the all black Smith Street School. The school was quite some distance from the
girl’s home in Boston; and generally the common schools that African-Americans had available
to them were dilapidated and under funded. As a result, her father, Benjamin F. Roberts (who
printed this pamphlet), attempted to apply her to several nearer, white schools. She was of course
denied on the basis of race and was actually physically removed from one of the schools. Roberts
proceeded to write to the state legislature, and the case went all the way up to the Supreme
Court of Massachusetts, where Roberts listed his daughter Sarah as the plaintiff against the
defendant, Boston. The defendant’s attorney was Peleg Chandler and the plaintiff’s attorneys
were Charles Sumner and Robert Morris, the country’s first licensed African-American attor-
ney; the judge was Lemuel Shaw. Sumner and Morris argued the trauma the four-year-old
would experience having to walk such a long distance to a run down school, but despite their
best efforts Shaw ruled against the plaintiff. However, Roberts brought the same issue up to the
state legislature with the help of his lawyer Charles Sumner and in 1855, the state of
Massachusetts banned segregated schools in the entire state. This was the first law against segre-
gated schools in the country. Cited in Plessy v Ferguson and again almost 100 years later in
Brown v Board of Ed.