Viewing page 3 of 14

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

Office of Assistant Commissioner,
Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen & Abandoned Lands,
Montgomery, Alabama,
August 11, 1865

Sir,
Some days since I had the honor to call your attention to the published instructions of the Mayor of Mobile to his Chief of Police, denying to the free colored people of that city the right of peaceable assembly, and of choosing a place of habitation and industry.

Since that time the course of that officer has been in progressive violation of the policy and orders of the President of the United States.

In a formal decision, he has announced that the negro cannot sue, though he can be sued, cannot testify, though he can be testified against, and that he has no greater civil rights than under the slave code.

over