The Lombard Street riot was a racially motivated mob attack on the free Black community in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on August 1, 1842.
Background In 1842, the Black community of Philadelphia was concentrated in what is now known as the Washington Square and Society Hill areas of Philadelphia. At nearly 20,000 people this population was larger the whole population (Black and white) of Buffalo, New York.
Social, economic, religious and political stratification and diversity existed with this community. This included a large working class population organized into over 17 churches, hundreds of mutual aid societies, literary and intellectual groups, anti-slavery and emancipation support groups, economic associations, and over 23 public and private schools. Many churches had substantial public infrastructure; such as First African Presbyterian church which could hold 900 people. The wealthiest tier of this population included some of the wealthiest people in Philadelphia; like sailmaker James Forten.
Within close proximity to the Mason–Dixon line - which represented the dividing line between states whose economic foundation was the enslavement of Black people, and Pennsylvania where enslavement was illegal - the Black community of Philadelphia importantly served as a hub of emancipation and anti-slavery activities; and as a destination for people who had self-emancipated or leveraged Underground Railroad routes to gain their freedom.
Possible causes Success of the Black temperance movement In the early 1840s, Black temperance organizations were active in Philadelphia. The idea to specifically target problems associated with alcohol addiction made an appearance in colored conventions of the early 1830s. By 1837, the American Moral Reform Society (AMRS) had formed in Philadelphia for the purpose of "sound morality, by the influence of ...temperance" and whose members had to comply with "total abstinence, from all intoxicating liquors." AMRS founding documents called for the creation of a physical location that would include a manual labor school. It seems that by 1842, a physical location had been established in Moyamensing on Bedford Street between 7th and 8th. Abolitionist Henry Clarke Wright describes ‘Temperance Hall’ on Bedford Street as "being in the midst of brothels, grog-shops, gambling hells, kept by whites and blacks -mainly whites". The small brick hall had successfully become "a comfortable little place in which to gather" with an attached sabbath school where meetings were held weekly.
In 1841 temperance leader Dr. James J.G. Bias had moved from his home at Acorn Alley to 8th and Bedford near Temperance Hall. This move may have been in response to his growing responsibilities in the temperance movement. In 1843 there were seven Black temperance societies in Philadelphia. Dr. Bias was the president of the largest group, the Moyamensing Benevolent Temperance Society of Philadelphia which claimed 1100 members in 1843. In 1842, Dr. Bias estimated that 450 rum sellers in Moyamensing experienced a 90% reduction in average daily receipts (from $5 a day to $.50 a day) due to the temperance movement.
Black wealth and social mobility During the decade before the mob attack, Philadelphia experienced a boom in Irish immigrants, most of whom settled in close proximity to the Black population, in Southwark, Northern Liberties and Moyamensing. This population was socially and religiously diverse and experienced contests that spilled over into armed conflict during the Nativist riots. Middle and working class white people, both Irish immigrants and native born, participated in racist attacks targeting symbols of Black wealth; private homes, churches and halls in the 1834 and 1835 mob attacks. A detailed analysis of arrest records from 1834 found both middle-class and working class native-born white people among the attackers as well. Another study found that attacks were aimed at the destruction of Black-owned property, with attention paid to the homes of wealthy Black people, rather than injuries to Black male low-skilled workers.
Sociologist Bruce Laurie writes that during this period "Blacks came to monopolize several categories of unskilled work and that some Black workers, as the looting and destruction of the whites showed, earned good incomes and accumulated some worldly possessions." Historian Emma Lapsanksy-Werner says that job competition was only part of the issue. What must also be included as a cause of white racial attacks is Black social mobility. "Job competition and amalgamation were but portions of a larger issue, that of blacks' rising aspirations and designs for upward mobility that threatened to jostle the established social order."
Parade organizers
The Moyamensing Benevolent Temperance Society decided to hold a public celebration due to the success of their movement, which they hoped would encourage others to join.
August 1 was popularly known as ‘West Indian Emancipation Day” and represented the day when millions of enslaved people were emancipated within the British Empire. Black communities in the United States had already regularized this celebration and so it was felt that the parade should be held on Emancipation Day.
Other community groups were invited to participate. A July 9, 1842 Letter from Wesley Sabbath School to Jacob C. White Sr., Leon Gardiner Collection, Box 12g, Historical Society of Pennsylvania letter to Jacob C. White Sr. from the Wesley Sabbath school appears to accept an invitation to participate in the march and to sing songs from a hymnal. It reads:
Wesley Sabbath School to Jacob C White Sr.
Mr. White,
Dear sir, the Lombard Street Sabbath School of the Wesley Church have unanimously decided to unite in the Celebration of the 1st of August, and with 150 copies of the hymns for the use of the schools, you will please inform us of the arrangement for drilling the schools in singing. I am yours very respectfully,
Mrs. Levick
In this broadside for the event, Sunday schools, which would have had populations of children and their families, took place in a pre-parade ceremony.
The Young Men’s Vigilant Association also participated. Because of the banners that prominently displayed their name, they were incorrectly assumed to be the organizers of the parade.
Planning A few weeks before August 1842, a Chester County newspaper reported that “a black woman..expressed a desire to visit the city, but said she was afraid. Her fear was founded upon the fact, that the blacks were threatened to be mobbed.”"Riot in Philadelphia." The Age and Lancaster and Chester County Weekly Gazette, August 6, 1842. 'Justice', a commentator in the Liberator, reported that a group of miners had some semblance of a strike in Pottsville over wages and that those same miners were noted to be in Philadelphia on August 1 “actively engaged in the riot.” He received information that a group of Irishmen were "known to be...making clubs of hickory, bark at one end, and the other whittled and painted black" the weekend before August 1.
On the morning of August 1, a Monday, carpenters working on Beneficial Hall, a hall build by wealthy Black leader Stephen Smith at the corner of 7th and Lombard, were observed removing all their tools from the hall in the morning.
Black leaders Robert Purvis, Rev. Charles Gardner and Bishop Daniel Payne wrote in the days after that "From various information received, there is strong reason to believe that plots had been laid, preparations made and cudgels obtained for the purpose of breaking up the procession, if not further violence, before the arrival of the day on which it was to take place."
On the day of the attack, multiple sources say that Mayor John Scott was told in the morning that an attack on the Black community, specifically that arson at Beneficial Hall, was planned. For example, the National Anti-Slavery Standard wrote that "the rioters threatened all the day of Monday to burn the Hall at night."“The Philadelphia Mob”, The National Anti-Slavery Standard (New York), August 11, 1842
Attack 1,200 parade marchers, including school groups of children, gathered in the morning at Temperance Hall on Bedford Street. At the rear of the march, which must have stretched several blocks, was the Young Men’s Vigilant Association. They carried two banners designed by Black artist Robert Douglass Junior. One banner was described thusly by the National Anti-Slavery Standard; "In honor of the anniversary of West Indian Emancipation, [the banner] bore the figure of a colored man, pointing with one hand to the broken chains at his feet, and with the other to word LIBERTY, in gilded letters, over his head. In the background, was a rising sun, and a sinking slave ship. The reverse bore this inscription: THE YOUNG MEN’S VIGILANT ASSOCIATION OF PHILADELPHIA. How grand in age, how fair in youth, Are holy friendship, love and truth Instituted July 23, 1841."
The march proceeded as follows.
Temperance Hall - Bedford Street
Up 8th to Lombard Lombard to 10th 10th to Carpenter Carpenter to 4th 4th to Shippen (Bainbridge)
Newspapers agree that near the corner of 4th and Shippen (now Bainbridge), white young men started to harass the marchers. This quickly grew into an attack. The Anti-Slavery Standard reports that "brick- bats, clubs and missiles of every description were thrown at each other". Black people fought back. The parade stopped. The banners were torn down and sent to the mayor’s office where he publicly displayed them.
Up 6th to the corner of 6th and Lombard, the white mob proceeded to beat Black people indiscriminately and to destroy homes, smashing windows with bricks, pulling down shutters, destroying doors, and tearing down walls. They entered a court next to Big Wesley church and destroyed 4 homes.
At about 4:00 pm, some of the white mob went south, back into Moyamensing and Bedford Street. They destroyed a house at South and Hirst. They appeared to enter 8th and Bedford with the intention to attack certain houses. "They entered Bedford street, where all halted before some small frame houses, and shower upon shower of destructive missiles were hurled at them; the attention of the mob was then directed to a one-story meeting-house or school-room in the rear, the doors and windows of which were soon demolished; just at this moment, and when we were standing directly opposite the meeting house, a blackdischarged a loaded gun from one of the windows at the crowd, but did no damage...the mob..succeeded in wrestling from him the gun, and also an old sword and securing him prisoner."
Dr. James J.G. Bias lived at 8th and Bedford at this time and Temperance Hall was also at 8th and Bedford. The mob may have known both the location of Dr. Bias’ house and Temperance Hall. The "meeting house or school-room" may have been the school room for the Temperance Hall Sabbath School described by Henry C. Wright.
Another group of mobsters stayed near St. Mary and 7th. When they got to Bradford Alley they were met with gunfire from a house. Three Black people, a teenager named Henry Van Brackle, a man named Anthony Harvey and a third Black man were fighting back and three white men were hit by gunfire. As that was happening, the mob was growing in numbers and threats. One estimate was that 3000 white people were attacking Black people and destroying Black-owned property.
At about 6:15 pm, a white man broke into the back door of a home on Lombard between 7th and 8th. Old and young people were dragged out and beaten."Riot in Philadelphia." The Age and Lancaster and Chester County Weekly Gazette, August 6, 1842.