This month in 19th
Century American history features many events of significance in the heritage of African
Americans.
On September 15,
1830, the first Negro
Convention of Free Men convened in Philadelphia, PA, with a mission to identify problems to the black
race in the United States and to establish practical measures to counter
them. Five days later, this convention
voted to boycott the products of slave labor. Conventions like this continued
nearly annually through 1864, then irregularly after that. In 1853, Frederick
Douglass presided over the convention. The following year, Martin R. Delaney,
editor of the anti-slavery paper The North Star, presided.
Initially, the convention
developed as a platform from which to contest the American Colonization
Society, a white organization founded in Washington, DC, whose mission was to relocate black slaves to a
new colony in Africa. (This was partially effected, the end result of
which was the establishment of the Republic of Liberia in 1847.) These black
abolitionists believed that the motive behind the ACS was to cleanse the United States of the black race, to make the nation all
white. Although the black caucus was
divided over overseas colonization vs. domestic integration, many black leaders
remained firm in their belief that the black race had earned its right to
remain on American soil. Over time, many who had supported colonization joined
the home-soil movement.
Another purpose of these
conventions was to develop practical strategies to improve the lot of the black
race in America. The leaders promoted the establishment of
economic, educational, social, political, and cultural institutions to provide
the black man with tools with which he could prosper, and ultimately to prove
to the American white man that he was capable of managing his own life and
affairs, with an eye toward recognition as a citizen and all of the rights and
responsibilities which that entailed.
On September 20,
1850, the slave trade was
abolished in Washington, DC. The
institution continued within the city limits, but the buying and selling of
slaves there was over. Perhaps Lincoln’s unsuccessful legislative effort in 1849 (when he was a US Representative in Congress), which
proposed to end slavery in the District of Columbia with monetary recompense to slaveholders, served
as fodder for this partial act a year and a half later. In 1862, Lincoln, as President, signed into law another bill which
effected the results he had promoted in 1849. The 1862 law abolished slavery in
DC, paying District slave owners for their investment.
On September 22,
1862, Lincoln issued the final draft of his Emancipation
Proclamation, freeing the slaves within the rebelling states, a military
measure which Lincoln hoped would undercut morale among Southern troops.
It also gave black Americans the opportunity to fight directly for their own freedom. After the Proclamation took effect on January 1, 1863, more than 200,000 blacks enlisted and fought for
the Union, constituting about 10 percent of the Union army.
Ultimately, the Thirteenth
Amendment to the Constitution, which eliminated slavery, was approved by
Congress in January 1865 and ratified by three-quarters of the States by
December 1865, with complete ratification by 1870.
After the Civil War, these
National Black Conventions remained true to the interests of African Americans,
the platforms changing to reflect emerging issues for blacks in America, including Reconstruction, the labor movement, and
civil rights.
Other notable 19th
Century September events in African American history:
 |
| Frederick Douglass |
9/3/1838 Frederick Douglass,
disguised as a sailor, escapes slavery.
9/13/1886 Alain Locke is born in Philadelphia, PA. The first black Rhodes scholar, he
becomes a writer and philosopher, and is called the “Father of the Harlem
Renaissance.”
9/21/1872 John Henry Conyers of South Carolina is the first black student admitted to Annapolis Naval Academy.
9/23/1863 Mary Church Terrell, a
black educator and activist is born in Memphis, TN. In 1896, she becomes the first president of the
newly formed National Association of Colored Women. In 1904, she attends the
International Congress of Women, the only black in attendance, and as the guest
speaker, gives her address in English, French, and German.
9/24/1825 Frances Ellen Watkins
Harper is born in Baltimore, MD. A black writer and feminist, she introduces the
tradition of African American protest poetry.
9/27/1817 Hiram Rhodes Revels is born
in Fayetteville, NC. He becomes the first black US Senator in 1869, representing Mississippi and serving one term. (The first black US
Representative, Joseph Hayne Rainey, representing South Carolina and serving
five terms, was born in June 1832.)
SOURCES
- James Monroe Whitfield’s
America and Other Poems (1853) http://www.classroomelectric.org/volume1/levine/emigration.html
- “Africans in America” http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4narr5.html
- Abraham Lincoln: A History John G. Nicolay and John Hay (New York:
The Century Co., 1890)
- The Frederick Douglas
Encyclopedia, Julius E. Thompson, James L. Conyers, Jr., and Nancy J. Dawson (Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2010)
-
BlackHistoryDaily.com http://blackhistorydaily.com
IMAGE CREDITS
This engraving from the April 30, 1853, edition of the Illustrated News shows the
congregation of Cincinnati's African Church. (From the collections of the Library
of Congress) http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3h88.html
Frederick Douglas http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p1539.html
