2022-07 Raynors HCA Auction
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 7/15/2022
Broadside, 6-1/4” x 10-1/4”, with headline “Hedgehog’s Grand Combinations of the Powers of Darkness...” An anti-Fifteenth Amendment parody broadside in the style of early minstrelsy handbills. Printed in various fonts it lists the program with racist songs and "the whole to conclude with Hedgehog's celebrated feat of swallowing a Live Negro!" The broadside could also be seen as a parody of a minstrel broadside, given its content and layout. The songs include "Nigs, I want to be Sheriff," "The Evil Spirit is in me," "Hens and Chickens gone to roost," "XVth Amendment Exemplified," and "Benefits of Civil Rights Bill." The "performance" is scheduled to end with Professor Hedgehog's "celebrated feat of swallowing A LIVE NEGRO!" Another especially egregious assertion of the text reads, "During the performance of this celebrated troop, the Roost will be hermetically sealed so as to retain the delightful odor of the negroes." The admission notice at bottom claims that the "Front seats reserved for the Colored Ladies. No white folks admitted without special permission of Professor Hedgehog." The Fifteenth Amendment was ratified on 3 February 1870, which prohibited the denial of a citizen's right to vote based upon "race, color, or previous condition of servitude." The amendment was greeted with celebrations among African American and abolitionist communities with one of the largest held in Philadelphia on 5 May 1870, billed as the "Grand Celebration in Honor of the Ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment." This anti-Black broadside was likely printed as an attack on the official celebration.
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