Grace Covenant Church, Chantilly, VA – Black History Month, February 2018. And back by popular demand for BHM 2019 and 2020 featuring different items.
The Emergence of Discriminatory Poll Taxes
Slavery, Globalization, and “The Columbian Exchange,” in 1570
Rev. George Whitefield – Evangelist Slaveowner Ushers in The Great Awakening
Opening Scenes of the Civil War -The Architects of Secession
A Shocking Witness to the National Emergency!
A Slave at Fort Sumter Letter – Was He a Spy?
Robert Smalls – His Daring Capture of the CSA Gunboat “Planter” Made Him a National Hero
Confederate Currencies Featured Slavery as the Source of Southern Affluence
Border State Slaveowner Asks Feds to Return Her Runaways – But the Answer is Complicated
The Emancipation Proclamation
A Slave’s Miraculous Passport to Freedom
Currier & Ives Print Commemorates Lincoln’s Role in Emancipation
Evidence That Slave Dealing Thrived in the Civil War South
Popular Actress Fanny Kemble Reveals Horrors of Plantation Slavery
Secretary of War’s Original Order to Create the First Northern Black Regiments
The 54th Massachusetts Regiment’s Famous Assault on Fort Wagner Solidifies Northern Resolve for Victory
Orders from the Commander of “Wild’s African Brigade” During the Lengthy Siege of Fort Wagner
Creed of the Knights of the Golden Circle, a Forerunner of KKK – and How It Affected the 1864 Presidential Election
CSA Approves Restitution for Lost Slave, Berry
Black Soldier Killed on Guard Duty
African American Soldiers Imprisoned, and The Civil War’s Great Escape from Libby Prison
Unique Battlefield Sketch and Slogan of a Black Civil War Soldier
Surgeon’s Casualty Report for the 54th Massachusetts in Their Final Action, Includes the Last Union Officer Killed in the War
White Officer Praises His Black Troops
Ira Aldridge – Black Thespian Played to European Audiences
Centennial Singers – Revived Plantation Musical Traditions
Bert Williams – Black Vaudevillian
Early Radio Show Found Humor in Racial Stereotyping
Duke Ellington – 78 RPM Record with Early Signature
Duke Ellington – Perhaps Era’s Greatest Composer and Bandleader with His Famous Orchestra
Louis Armstrong – Early Signed Letter and His Trumpet’s Mouthpiece
Louis Armstrong – Letter Written a Few Days Before His Passing
Paul Robeson – Epitome of a 20th Century Black Renaissance Man
Marian Anderson – Kept Offstage by Racial Discrimination
Josephine Baker – The “Black Venus”
Billie Holiday – Her 1939 Song “Strange Fruit” Protested Lynching
Sarah Vaughan – “The Divine One”
Charlie “Bird” Parker – Jazz Alto Sax Legend
The Outsider – Signed Oil Painting for First Paperback Edition of Richard Wright’s Novel
Dizzy Gillespie – With Trademark Bulging Cheeks and Bent Horn
Thelonious Monk – The High Priest of Bop
John Coltrane – Innovative Tenor and Soprano Saxophonist
John Coltrane – Inscribed 1961 Tiffany 18kt Gold Watch
Ray Charles – At the Apollo, 1962
Chuck Berry – Rock ‘n Roll Superstar
Aretha Franklin – “The Queen of Soul”
Blaeu’s Hand-Colored Map of Africa, c. 1640, as Europeans Crave Sugar
1667 Manhattan Land Transfer to a Free Black’s Heirs
Our Foundation in Slavery – The Uncomfortable Truth About Harvard Law’s First Benefactor
Important Slave Trade Map with the Infamous African Slave Factories
The Terrible Middle Passage – Why This Image Fostered Abolitionism
Fabricating “a Negro Iron and fitting it on a wench”
Virginia’s Fine Tobacco Brings Great Wealth and “America’s Original Sin”
Cherokee Indian Sells His Black Slave, Amos
James DeWolf – New England’s Most Notorious Slaver, and The Triangle Trade
Ordinance Against Throwing Dead Bodies into Charleston’s Harbor
“A Good Likeness Of Sancho”
Ads Offering Slaves the Day Before the African Trade Ban Took Effect, and the Paper’s Own Reward for its Runaway Pressman
Peter Williams, Jr. – “An Oration on The Abolition of The Slave Trade”
Liberated Slave Testifies to the British Court of Admiralty about Sierra Leone Slave Factory on Bunce Island
Actual Evidence – A Bill of Sale for Slaves Sold off the Windward Coast of Africa After the Slave Trade was Banned
Black Seaman’s Declaration – And Why Frederick Douglass Borrowed One Like It
Denmark Vesey & Nat Turner Slave Rebellions – What was Learned and What was Suppressed
The Martial Response to Nat Turner’s Rebellion – And Why He Might Have Been More Successful
Reward Poster for a Runaway Slave
Insuring Slavers, Triangular and Internal Slave Trading, and the Rise of King Cotton
Slave Mutiny on the Amistad – Ex-President John Quincy Adams Defends Mutineers in U.S. Supreme Court
General Orders for U.S. Navy in Apprehending Slaverunners at Sea
The Cherokee Trail of Tears Included Their African American Slaves
1845 First Edition Autobiography of Frederick Douglass
Public Sale of Estate Slaves in Missouri
Sale of 58 Named Slaves with Auctioneer’s Tally Sheet
The Infamous Fugitive Slave Bill of 1850
Shipping Prime Slaves to New Orleans
Charleston Slave Tag – The Sole Item Exclusively Made For and Worn by Enslaved Persons
Virginia Slave Flees Her Master While Visiting a Northern State
A Free Black Desperately Awaits Her “Free Papers” from Jail
Sen. Charles Sumner’s Congressional Plea to Repeal the Fugitive Slave Law
Antebellum Slave Shackles – How This Pair May Have Been Used
Dred Scott Decision – Slaves and Descendants Have No Rights
Evidence Purporting Illegal Use of the U.S. Flag in Transporting Slaves from Africa
An Officer Witnesses Hundreds of Slaves Drowning Off the West Coast of Africa
“A Slave Auction at the South” During the Civil War
Aetna Slave Insurance Policy – May Have Had Unintended Benefits in Protecting Slaves
Slave Dealer’s Business Card (c. 1860)
Diary of a Slave Overseer, Hardscrabble Plantation, Louisiana (1859-1861)
Denmark Vesey Slave Insurrection in Charleston, SC (1822)
Diary of a Slave Overseer, Weekly Totals of Cotton Picked
Harriet Tubman – Biography of the Famous Underground Railroad Conductor and Insurrectionist
Abolitionist John Brown Invades (West) Virginia
Eyewitness Account of John Brown’s Raid on U.S. Arsenal at Harpers Ferry
The Auction Block – A Family Concern for All Involved
Sojourner Truth – CDV and Her Rare Signature
Raymond O. Wolfe, Permanent Representative of Jamaica to the UN, speaks at the United Nations Transatlantic Slave Trade exhibit marking 2012’s International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. He is standing by The Mitchell Collection’s original 1789 print of a slave ship’s hold containing Africans headed for America to be sold as slaves in various countries and islands. The Mitchell Collection was honored to be chosen as a major contributor of rare artifacts viewed by hundreds of thousands of visitors.
Mark with Cameroon’s Minister of Culture and African permanent UN representatives at opening ceremonies for United Nation’s Transatlantic Slave Trade Exhibit, 2012.
United Nations Transatlantic Slave Trade Exhibition at the Visitors Center
Washington, DC, Mormon Temple Visitor Center – January through August 2002
Exhibit, “From Slavery to the White House” Melville Gallery, South Street Seaport, New York City
At an event, actor Danny Glover gazes in awe at Mark’s original 1798 handwritten letter of Haitian leader Toussaint Louverture
Black Education in Colonial New York City
Slaves Unfitted For Education or Freedom!
Northern White Lady Volunteers to Teach Freed Slaves
First Journal for the Education of Freed Slaves
Primary School for Freedmen in Mississippi
John Willis Menard – First Elected Black Congressman
Howard University in 1869
Hiram Rhoads Revels – First African American Senator
F. L. Cardozo Proposes Two Promising Students for Howard University
Senator Revels – Accepts Invitation to Give a Lecture
Booker T. Washington – Promoted Economic Self-Sufficiency
Alonzo Jacob Ransier – As Former SC Lieutenant Governor and Early Black Congressman
School for Training Black Automobile Mechanics
Blanche Kelso Bruce – First Black Senator to Serve a Full Term
Mrs. Booker T. Washington Offers a Teaching Position at Tuskegee Institute
Edward W. Brooke – The First Black Senator Elected Since Reconstruction
Carter Godwin Woodson – Father of Black History
Carl Stokes – First African American Mayor of a Major City
Negro History Week Trophy Cup
Barack Obama – The First African American President of the United States!
Mary McLeod Bethune – First Lady of the Struggle
Master/Slave Enlistment Agreement from 1777 – For One of the First African Americans to Enlist in the Revolutionary War
Continental Army Pay Document – A Black Recruit Changes His Name to Reflect His New Status
The 1st Rhode Island Black Regiment Served at Battle of Yorktown
Virginian’s Letters to Lord Cornwallis Seek Return of Escaped Slaves Within British Encampments at Yorktown
George Washington Recovers Mount Vernon Slaves Who Fled to the British Navy – A First Review of Rare, Never Before Seen Document
Gen. Andrew Jackson’s Desperate Call for Free Blacks to Defend New Orleans in War of 1812
The Fantastic Claim of a Connecticut Drummer Boy
First Study of Black Participation in the American Revolution and War of 1812
Buffalo Soldier Discharged After Five Years Service
Buffalo Soldiers in the Southwest
Henry Ossian Flipper – Autobiography of First Black U.S. Military Academy Graduate
Colonel Charles Young – First Black West Point Graduate to Achieve High Rank
Black Cavalry were the Real Heroes of the Spanish-American War
World War I Recruitment Poster – May Have Had Racial Overtones
W. E. B. Du Bois – Intellectual Pathfinder
Eugene Jacques Bullard – First African American Combat Pilot Faced Bias
1922 NAACP Anti-Lynching Poster
Asa Philip Randolph – Planned Mass Marches on Washington, DC
Rosa Parks – Mother of Modern Civil Rights Movement
Tuskegee Airman WW II Fundraising Poster
The Assassination of Medgar Evers
Black GI’s – After Landing on Omaha Beach on D-Day
Historically Important Letter from Malcolm X to Author Alex Haley
The Chicago Defender – Confronted Segregation Within the Military
Martin Luther King, Jr., Writes Censored Note from Birmingham Jail
The Assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
African American Pilot in Korea and Vietnam
LBJ Opposes Racism’s Greatest Challenge – Residential Discrimination
Professor Angela Davis – Black Panther Activist
Black Participation in the Vietnam War
Losing the War, but Winning the Peace – The KKK Attacks a Southern Black Family
Ku Klux Terrorists Captured in Mississippi
“The Negro Exodus – Scenes on the Wharves at Vicksburg”
The Exodus of 1879 – An Eyewitness Account
Jim Crow Cartoon Maligns African Americans
Booker T. Washington Protests Against Lynching
A Black Dentist Accepts Black Patients Only
KKK Mailing Includes Notice of a Black Mass Meeting for a Lecture by Marcus Garvey
Marcus Garvey – Publishing Tycoon Revived Recolonization Movement
Marcus Garvey – Black Star Line Stock Certificate
UNIA Member Certificate from 1924 – the High Water Mark of Garveyism
The 1921 Tulsa Race Riot was One of Many from 1917 to 1923
Hanging Wasn’t the Only Atrocity Committed by White Lynch Mobs
Future President FDR Writes About Building a Segregated Swimming Pool in 1929
The Scottsboro Case – Heywood Patterson Appeals His Death Sentence
Reconstruction Era, circa 1865-1877 – A Formal Sharecroppers’ Agreement at War’s End
Andrew Johnson – Lincoln’s Obstructionist Successor
African Americans Vote for the First Time
President Johnson Signs Proclamation of Florida and N. Carolina’s Readmission to the Union Upon Ratifying Landmark 14th Amendment
Blacks in the Majority of South Carolina Legislature
Freedmen in the South Discussing Politics
Hampton Virginia’s “Slabtown” Depicted Six Months After the War
Promises, Promises: The Enduring Legend of “Forty Acres and a Mule”
Republican Party Courts Black Voters in 1868
The 1869 National Colored Convention Discusses the Condition of America’s Blacks
1869 Sharecroppers’ Agreement
Former Slaves in Richmond Registering for the First Time in 1870
The Freedman’s Savings and Trust Company – Important Letter by Frederick Douglass
Ulysses S. Grant – The Outgoing President Attempts to Save Reconstruction
Mark and Branford Marsalis
Mark at the African Diaspora Heritage Trail Conference in Bermuda, 2002
Mark on tenor saxophone with trumpeter Tommy Williams
Mark with actor Ben Vereen holding the original contract for what became “Roots”
Mark and Thelonious Monk, Jr.
Mark, at far right, listens to Rep. John R. Lewis (D-GA), at NMAAHC dedication outside the U.S. Capitol in 2003, with pieces from his collection in background
Commander Mark Mitchell at the commissioning of the Coast Guard Cutter, “Alex Haley” (WMEC-39)
Lonnie G. Bunch III, Director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, stressing the depth and importance of Mark’s unique collection
Mark speaking at the National Press Club in Washington, DC
Mark in Feb. 2017 showing Wynton Marsalis two Louis Armstrong letters from 1932 and 1971, both described in the Arts & Music category
Phillis Wheatley – First Published African American
Phillis Wheatley’s 1773 Handwritten Poem “Ocean”
Benjamin Banneker – Early African American Mathematical Genius
The Signature of Benjamin Banneker
William Wells Brown – First Novel by an African American
Benjamin Banneker – Surveys Boundaries of District of Columbia, the New Federal City
The Greatest Black Jockey in History
Toussaint Louverture – Led Only Successful Slave Revolt of Modern Times
Paul Laurence Dunbar – Snapshot of the Newlywed Author
Jack Johnson – The First African American Heavyweight Boxing Champion
Toussaint Louverture, Revolutionary Haitian General, Writes to Future King Henri Christophe
Louverture Betrayed, and His Last-Known Letter
Sam Langford – The Greatest Boxer Nobody Knows
Frederick Douglass – Most Influential 19th Century African American
Paul Laurence Dunbar – A Fair Copy of His Most Famous Poem “Life”
1923 Lincoln College Football Team
Frederick Douglass – New U.S. Minister to Haiti Writes to a Friend
Negro League Bat Used by Legendary Pittsburgh Crawfords
Frederick Douglass’ Calling Card as U.S. Minister to Haiti
Countee Cullen – A Fair Copy of His Celebrated Poem “Yet Do I Marvel”
Jesse Owens Stars in the 1936 Berlin Olympics
Matthew Henson – First African American Polar Explorer
Joe Louis – His 1938 Comeback Victory
Zora Neale Hurston – Harlem Renaissance Period Writer Whose Ethnographic Work Surprises Us Still
Madam C.J. Walker – Recognized as First African American Millionaire
Jackie Robinson – First African American in Major League Baseball
George Washington Carver – The Great Agricultural Chemist and Educator
Henry “Hank” Aaron 1954 Topps Rookie Baseball Card
Langston Hughes – Poet Laureate of the Negro Race
George Washington Carver – Writes a Colleague Concerning Peanut Plant Disease
“Hank” Aaron – Stats from Rookie Card
Althea Gibson Wins Wimbledon Singles Tennis Championship
Bill Pickett – Black Film Star Innovated Modern-Day Steer Wrestling
Jim Brown – Rookie Card of Star Cleveland Browns Fullback
Jim Brown – Stats from His 1957 Rookie Card
James Baldwin – Original Script for Play, The Amen Corner
Bessie Coleman – First African American Aviatrix Confronted Segregation in the Sky
“The Greatest” Muhammad Ali – Rare Early Photo Signed as Cassius Clay
Dr. Charles Drew – His Blood Plasma Methods Save Countless Lives
Amiri Baraka – Script for the Activist’s Award-Winning Play, Dutchman
“Marion Motley Day” Program
Alice Walker – Signed First Edition of The Color Purple
Dr. Charles R. Drew – Portrait of the Medical Pioneer
Arthur Ashe – First African American Male to Win Wimbledon, and His 1975 U.S. Passport
Cigarette Advertisement Targeted at Blacks
Michael Jordan Guarding Magic Johnson in an NBA Game
USAF Major Guion S. Bluford, Jr. – First Black Astronaut
President Obama Picks 2012 NCAA Basketball Brackets Live on ESPN
Rev. Richard Allen – First Bishop of the A.M.E. Church
Rev. Richard Allen’s Sermon on the Death of George Washington, and an Original Printing of the Founder’s Will
Early Recolonization Journal of Reverend Daniel Coker: “Thank the Lord I Have Seen Africa!”
Rev. James H. Holmes – Pastor of Largest Church in the South
First Black Mega-Church Numbered 3,000 Members in Richmond
The First African American Newspaper
The Liberia Herald – John Russwurm’s African Newspaper
The Liberator – The Most Influential Abolitionist Newspaper in History
William Lloyd Garrison – Founder and Publisher of The Liberator Newspaper
Rev. Samuel D. Ferguson – First Black Member of the Protestant Episcopal House of Bishops
William Lloyd Garrison – Autograph Quote on the Institution of Slavery
Frederick Douglass’ Legendary North Star
Henry Bibb – Storied Publisher of the First Black Newspaper in Canada Invites African Americans to Safety in Canada
EBONY – Cover Photo and Article by Famed Bandleader and Composer, Duke Ellington
JET Magazine – Wife Myrlie and Children of Slain Civil Rights Activist Medgar Evers
Mahalia Jackson – Queen of the Gospel Song
Alex Haley – Journalist, Author, and Lecturer
Alex Haley’s 1964 Personal Diary and Logbook
Malcolm X Writes to Elijah Muhammad
Alex Haley – The Beginnings of Roots
Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Baptizes a Church Member
Two Slaves Battle Each Other in Court in 1771, and the Intersection of Law with Black History
Views of Our Early Supreme Court on Slavery Went Unnoticed Until Very Recently
Slaves Poison Their Overseer
Overseer Indicted for Murdering a Slave
John Rock – First Black Attorney to Appear Before Supreme Court
Macon Bolling Allen – First African American Licensed Attorney
Brown v. Board of Education – Overturned “Separate But Equal” Treatment
Thurgood Marshall – NAACP’s Chief Counsel and Civil Rights Champion
Thurgood Marshall – The First African American Supreme Court Justice
