Proceedings of the Civil Rights Mass-Meeting

On October 22, 1883, the Supreme Court declared the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional. This sparked loud protest among African Americans. On October 22, 1883 a meeting took place at the Lincoln Hall in Washington, D.C. over 2,000 people, black and white, crowded into the hall to hear Frederick Douglass and Robert G. Ingersoll address the issue. Ingersoll was the Illinois attorney general from 1867-1869. He was a powerful and witty stump speaker. Douglass first met Ingersoll in the 1860s when Ingersoll took Douglass into his home as a guest after hotels had refused him a room.