"USURPED THE POWER OF THE STATE THROUGH VIOLENCE AND OVERTHREW A DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED BIRACIAL GOVERNMENT": FIRST EDITION OF THE DANVILLE REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF FORTY, 1883, EXCEEDINGLY RARE IN ORIGINAL WRAPPERS

(BLACK HISTORY). Danville Riot. November 3, 1883. Report of Committee of Forty with Sworn Testimony of Thirty-Seven Witmesses, &C. Richmond: John & Goolsby, 1883. Octavo, original printed tan self-wrappers, later stitching; pp. 47. $2800.

First edition of a controversial Report by the predominantly white members of the Committee of Forty on the 1883 Virginia riot, widely known as the Danville Massacre, in which four Black men and a white man were killed, followed by armed white men who took over, "politically and physically—through violence," an exceptional copy in fragile original wrappers.

"The Reconstruction period that followed America's Civil War was one of the worst, most violent eras in American history. During that time thousands of African-Americans were killed by domestic terrorists like the KKK" (Smithsonian). Of these, a dispute in 1883 between a Black man and two white men in Danville, Virginia would have exceptional consequences when it "escalated into a massacre [as] a white mob shot into a crowd of unarmed Black men, women and children." Coming three days before a key state election, the Danville Riot, widely known as the "Danville Massacre," led to the downfall of the Readjusters, a "biracial third party that had governed Virginia since 1879" (Dailey, Manners and Massacres, 556). Positioned between white southern Democrats and the Reconstruction goals of Lincoln's Republicans, the Readjusters had reshaped Danville with the election of four Blacks to the 12-member council, as well as Black men as justices of the peace and policemen. In response, as the 1883 election approached, white Democrats published a circular titled Coalition Rule that railed against infestation by "idle and filthy negroes" and the "misrule of the radical or negro party now in absolute power" (Hahn, Nation Under Our Feet, 403).

That November gunfire erupted on the streets as "between 75 and 200 shots were fired in the space of two or three minutes." When the smoke cleared a white man and three Black men were dead, with a fourth Black man dying later. "All that afternoon and night groups of armed white men patrolled the streets… [and] repossessed the town—politically and physically—through violence… the white men in Danville usurped the power of the state through violence and overthrew a democratically elected biracial government" (Dailey, 575-79, 556-57). Newspapers cast the day "as a Black rampage" and in the election held a few days later, the Readjusters were defeated. Although that came by a margin of "a mere 18,000 votes out of more than a quarter of a million cast, [it] translated into veto-proof control of the legislature" (Hahn, 405). A Readjuster Senator was able to call for a "congressional investigation into fraud and intimidation at the polls" but it did not change the election results. Further, given Virginia was deemed the "most likely" southern state to vote Republican in the presidential election, the Readjuster loss "almost certainly" affected the election of Democrat Grover Cleveland to the presidency (Dailey, 581).

This Report by the Danville Committee of Forty, which included only one Black man, shifted "the blame for violence from Danville's white to its Black population" and concluded whites had shot in self-defense. A grand jury formed to determine separate responsibility for the five deaths "paralleled the findings of the Committee of Forty, including the charge that Danville's Black community "'rushed upon the scene… advancing upon the whites with drawn pistols.'" The sole Black man on the grand jury "later testified that no evidence was put before the jury that Black men had carried firearms" (Dailey, 583). A subsequent U.S. Senate Committee concluded in 1884 "that whites were to blame for the violence in Danville on November 3, 1883… but the judgment had little consequence. The Readjuster Party disappeared and with it, much of the political and social clout won by African Americans since the abolition of slavery" (Encyclopedia Virginia). First edition, first printing: found in tan wrappers (this copy) and green wrappers, no priority determined. Faint trace of owner signature above front wrapper.

Text very fresh with light expert restoration to wrappers.