Black Philadelphia

“But black class divisions were real and often important in Allen’s Philadelphia. Emma Lapsansky-Werner has noted that black Philadelphia was a study in economic contrasts by the 1820s and 1830s. Standing tall at the top 5 percent were economic elites: Bishop Allen, Merchant Prince James Forten, the elegant Cassey family (who styled hair and sold perfumes to “people of colour”). Below them sat a much larger group of black citizens, many of whom owned “no real property and only negligible personal property.” Stated in bald statistical terms, there were roughly one thousand black worthies and roughly fourteen thousand “poor people” of color in Philadelphia by the time of the first major abolitionist census in the 1830s."

Excerpt From: Richard S. Newman. “Freedom’s Prophet.” New York University Press, 2008. iBooks.
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