MURAL EXHIBIT: THE COLORED CONVENTIONS MOVEMENT AND BEYOND IN PHILADELPHIA

WILLIAM STILL

William Still (October 7, 1821–July 14, 1902) was an anti-slavery and civil rights activist, writer, businessman, and philanthropist. He is best known as the Father of the Underground Railroad and for writing The Underground Railroad, A Record of Facts, Authentic Narratives, Letters, & C (1872). Born to enslaved parents who had taken refuge in New Jersey, Still moved to Philadelphia as an adult and worked for the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery. There, he married Letitia George, who turned their home into a boarding house and provided a safe refuge for freedom seekers. Together, the Stills aided close to a thousand freedom seekers. It was in the Stills’ home that the Christian Street YMCA was founded, which remains one of the country’s oldest Black YMCAs.[note] Turner, Diane D. “William Still’s National Significance.” William Still: An African American Abolitionist, http://stillfamily.library.temple.edu/exhibits/show/william-still/historical-perspective/william-still—s-national-sig. Accessed 2 September 2022[/note] 

Still was devoted to documenting and preserving Black experiences. Apart from keeping detailed records about freedom seekers and the Underground Railroad, Still founded the Social, Civic, and Statistical Association of the Colored People of Pennsylvania along with fellow Philadelphians Isaiah C. Wears, Stephen M. Smith, and Reverend Jonathan C. Gibbs II around 1861.[note] Davis, Hugh. “The Pennsylvania State Equal Rights League and the Northern Black Struggle for Legal Equality, 1864-1877.” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 126, no. 4, 2002, p. 615[/note] The Association collected statistical records about Black communities and  “circulated pamphlets and petitions and held mass protest meetings demanding an end to segregation and forcible eviction of African Americans on streetcars.” The Association ramped up its demands for equal access and treatment in streetcars. By 1865, as delegates at the Equal Rights Convention in Harrisburg put it, “the Civil, Social & Statistical Association of Philadelphia as equally active and effective in securing our privileges in the cars” and that “the most influential meeting on the car question, ever held in Philadelphia, was under the auspices of the Civil, Social and Statistical Association.”[note] State Equal Rights’ Convention, of the Colored People of Pennsylvania (1865 : Harrisburg), “Proceedings of the State Equal Rights’ Convention, of the Colored People of Pennsylvania, held in the city of Harrisburg February 8th, 9th, and 10th, 1865 : together with a few of the arguments presented suggesting the necessity for holding the convention, and an address of the Colored State Convention to the people of Pennsylvania.,” Colored Conventions Project Digital Records, accessed September 3, 2022, https://omeka.coloredconventions.org/items/show/242.[/note]

William and Letitia Still’s House in Philadelphia. Photo taken by Samantha de Vera, October 29, 2022.

Documentation of Still’s participation in conventions is incomplete, but, for certain, he served as Vice President at the New England Colored Citizens’ Convention, held in Boston on August 1, 1859. There, he “interested a crowded audience…with a lecture on the History and some operations connected with the Underground Railroad…” The prime location of the Stills’ boarding house would have ensured that they were always involved in the Colored Conventions movement. As one of the few places where African Americans could secure lodgings in Philadelphia, the Stills’ home would have served as a site of political discussions among traveling delegates and other Black activists.

Long after the abolition of chattel slavery, Still continued his work with the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery. When asked about the Society’s continued existence in 1892, Still, then aged 71, remarked, “You ask why the society is continued now that slavery is abolished? The answer is found in the last clause of the name, ‘For Improving the Condition of the African Race.’”[note] The Society’s full name is Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery, the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage and for Improving the Condition of the African Race. See “Has Not Outlived Its Usefulness.” The Philadelphia Inquirer, 29 December 1892. p. 6.[/note] The Society funded education for Black children in the South. Like many Black leaders, Still was dismayed by the prevalence of terrorist violence perpetrated by Southern whites and the federal government’s inaction in the face of it. In 1890, Congress was set to vote on a bill proposing to give the federal government oversight over elections and to address the loopholes in the Fifteenth Amendment that Democrats used to deny African Americans the vote. When asked about this so-called Force Bill, Still said that “The Federal Government ought to do more than it has in protecting [Black Southerners] at the ballot-box. But I have never hoped for much from mere politics for their welfare…I am not prepared to say whether the passage of the Force bill will or will not benefit the Southern colored people. If it is a purely political movement and not founded on justice I think not.” [note] “Force Bill Criticized.” The Philadelphia Times, 23 July 1890. p. 4.[/note] Indeed, the Bill was left to languish and die in the Senate, as several Republicans joined the filibuster against it in exchange for Democratic support for the Sherman Silver Purchase Act. Though based in Philadelphia almost all his life, Still never wavered in his support for Black southerners, knowing that the fight against slavery did not end after abolition. 

For 25 years, Still served as board member, vice president, and president of the Home for the Aged and Infirm Colored Persons (est. 1864), where his daughter, Dr. Caroline Still Anderson, served as a physician.[note] Berhanu, Aslaku. “Home for the Aged and Infirm Colored Persons.” William Still: An African American Abolitionist, http://stillfamily.library.temple.edu/stillfamily/exhibits/show/william-still/people-and-places/home-for-the-aged-and-infirm-c. Accessed 2 September 2022.[/note] The Home’s founders and organizers believed that elderly formerly enslaved persons were among the most vulnerable victims of the institution of slavery, having been robbed of their health, youth, and families and left without support. When Still died in 1902, he and Letitia Still had already ensured that their children would continue the work of uplifting the Black community—or, in Still’s  words, “improving the condition of the African race.” They instilled in their children the power of education. Caroline Still was among the first Black women physicians in the country, and his daughter Frances Ellen Still became a kindergarten teacher. Sons William Wilberforce Still and Robert George Still were a lawyer and a journalist, respectively. The Still children became integral members of Philadelphia’s Black community. 

CREDITS

Written by Samantha de Vera.

REFERENCES