[AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY & LITERATURE] GIBBS, M.W. [Mifflin Wistar]; WASHINGTON, Booker T. (introduction)

Shadow and Light: An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century

Washington, DC: Privately Published, 1902. First Edition. First Printing. Octavo (20.25cm); vertically-ribbed cobalt blue cloth titled in gilt, with a blind-ruled border and decorations on front cover; floral endpapers; [iii],iv-xvi,[3]-372,[2]pp, with portrait frontispiece of the author and 38 plates of illustrations (halftones). Light wear to lower board edges, front endpaper neatly detached but present, with an old, very faint splash mark to upper edge of textblock; Very Good+.

A lively account of the life and times of Mifflin Wistar Gibbs (1823-1915), an American businessman, politician, and newspaper publisher from Philadelphia. Shadow and Light recalls his impoverished youth, his early involvement in aiding fugitive slaves while working with William Grant Still, and accompanying Frederick Douglass on his 1849 tour of New York. Gibbs moved west during the Gold Rush in 1850, sensing that there was more money to be made in business than in panning for gold; he and his partner established a prosperous clothing and dry goods business, and a few years after, Gibbs purchased and became the editor of the Mirror of the Times, the local Black antislavery newspaper. He moved to Victoria, British Columbia during the Canadian gold rush, opening an additional business, before returning to the U.S., where he got married, began his legal education, and established himself in Little Rock, Arkansas. "Beginning as a lawyer, he was later appointed to county attorney, and in 1873 he won election as municipal judge of Little Rock, reportedly the first black man in the nation to be so honored" (AANB Vol.3, p.484). He lost the judgeship in 1875, but embarked on a career in local and national politics, ultimately being appointed by Rutherford B. Hayes as register of the U.S. Land Office for the Little Rock District, and eventually as U.S. consul to Tamatave, Madagascar (1898-1901). The remainder of his life was dedicated to causes that would advance "the progress of the race." Uncommon in commerce, with the last copy in the auction record offered in 1962. BLOCKSON 3987; AANB Vol.3, pp.483-485. 85955.

Price: $3,750.00

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