Virginia Broadside “The Negro Taxpayer and Free Books “

This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 8/31/2008

Broadside, “The Negro Taxpayer and Free Books.” from the Lynchburg News, 1p. 6”x8-1/2”, and reads in part: “...Let the white people of Virginia remember that the total amount of State taxes paid into the treasury by the negroes for all purposes is less by $100,000 than the amount it costs to pay the criminal expenses of the negroes and to care for the colored insane. Let them remember that the total amount paid into the State school fund by the negroes on real and personal property jsut covers the amount paid annually by the State to the colored Normal School at Petersburg. Let them remember that while the negro constitutes 35 per cent. of the population of Virginia, he pays less than 4 per cent of the taxes. For every dollar in free books given, the negro would pay 4 cents, and the white people would pay 96 cents....It will cost $100,000 to supply the negroes with fee books. The negroes will pay $4,000 of this, and the white people will pay the $96,000 additional. With this record of what the white people of the State are doing for the negro race, and what they have been doing out of their poverty for the negroes ever since the war, is it right that the white people be made to pay $100,000 of taxes every year to furnish the negroes with free books...The white children want a better chance. Will the white people of the Valley and the great Southwest consent to tax themselves not only to provide books for their own children, but also to help provide free books to the negroes? The Democratic party makes no attack on the negro. It has given him generously of the means of the State to help educate his children. It is its purpose to treat him fairly, and to help him to better living in every legitimate way...” Fine.

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