Philly's troubling racist past

Once, when Underground Railroad agent extraordinaire John Fairfield ran out of money to take runaway slaves to Canada, he turned to Philadelphia for help, surely aware of the Philadelphia Vigilance Committee's success in aiding fugitives.

Unfamiliar with him, committee members telegraphed Underground Railroad agents in Cincinnati, who vouched for Fairfield, a white Virginian who is believed to have led several thousand blacks to freedom. The Philadelphians gave Fairfield cash for the wigs and powder that would allow a group of light-skinned blacks to look white and flee to Canada.

Philadelphia's fame as an Underground Railroad hub in the 1840s and '50s probably persuaded Fairfield to seek help here, yet when it came to ending slavery, Philadelphia was a two-faced city. It boasted citizens like William Still, author of The Underground Railroad, who masterminded many a fugitive's flight through the city and on to Canada. However, men like the prominent lawyer Charles Ingersoll championed slavery.

Ingersoll had lots of company. Philadelphia, in some ways, was a Southern city. Blacks couldn't ride the horse-drawn streetcars or enter certain public places. Some wealthy plantation owners summered in homes here. Philadelphia's elite, with whom the planters had a cozy relationship, admired Southern ways. Besides, some Philadelphians relied on slave-grown cotton for clothes and ate desserts sweetened with slave-grown sugar.

In 1827, a local Quaker group stood against such an implicit acceptance of slavery by forming the Free Produce Society, which sold only crops raised by paid labor. This boycott of Southern goods gave the public an alternative. While the society had scant economic impact, it served to remind Philadelphians of whose sweat grew some of their food.

A handful of black and Quaker women upped the ante by forming the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society in 1833. It scandalized the city to see women jump from the domestic sphere into the political arena, taking on the country's hottest issue. The group's interracial membership, rare at the time, also raised hackles.