Colored Conventions Movement

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February 6, 1869 illustration from Harper's Weekly: The National Colored Convention in Session at Washington, D.C.--Sketched by Theo. R. Davis

The Colored Conventions Movement, or Black Conventions Movement, was a series of national, regional, and state conventions held irregularly during the decades preceding and following the American Civil War. The delegates who attended these conventions consisted of both free and formerly enslaved African Americans including religious leaders, businessmen, politicians, writers, publishers, editors, and abolitionists. The conventions provided "an organizational structure through which black men could maintain a distinct black leadership and pursue black abolitionist goals."[1] Colored Conventions occurred in thirty-one states across the US and in Ontario, Canada. The movement involved more than five thousand delegates.[2]

The minutes from these conventions show that antebellum African Americans sought justice beyond the emancipation of their enslaved countrymen: they also organized to discuss issues concerning labor, health care, temperance, emigration, voting rights, the right to a trial by jury, and educational equality.[3] The Colored Conventions Movement started before the founding of any formal anti-slavery movement in the United States.[2]

The conventions significantly increased in number following the Civil War.[4] The antebellum and postbellum Colored Conventions are seen as the precursors to larger African-American organizations, including the Colored National Labor Union, the Niagara Movement, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).[5]

History[]

In the early 19th century, national and local conventions involving a variety of political and social issues were pursued by increasing numbers of Americans. In 1830 and 1831, political parties held their first national nominating conventions.[6] Historian Howard H. Bell notes that the convention movement grew out of a trend toward greater self-expression among African Americans and was largely fostered by the appearance of newspapers such as Freedom's Journal, and was first suggested by Hezekiah Grice[where?].[7] The first documented convention was held at Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church in Philadelphia in September 1830.[8] Delegates to this convention discussed the prospect of emigrating to Canada to find refuge from the harsh fugitive slave laws and legal discrimination under which they lived.[9] The first convention elected as president Richard Allen, founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), the first independent black denomination in the United States. The idea of buying land in Canada quickly gave way to addressing problems they faced at home, such as education and labor rights.

Philadelphia was the hub of the Colored Conventions movement for several years before nearby cities such as New York City, Albany, and Pittsburgh also started hosting conventions. By the 1850s, the conventions were extremely popular and multiple national, state, and local conventions were held every year. Although the majority of these antebellum conventions were held in northern, particularly New England states, conventions are documented[where?] as taking place in Kansas, Louisiana, and California.[10][11] The conventions attracted the most prominent African-American leaders from across the country, including Frederick Douglass, Charles Bennett Ray, Lewis Hayden, Charles Lenox Remond, Mary Ann Shadd, and William Still.

Following the Civil War, Colored Conventions began to appear in the Southern states as well, with one author noting that "we can not deny that the various conventions of the colored people in the late insurrectionary States compare favorably with those of their white brethren...their resolutions are of an elevated humanity and common sense to which those of the other Conventions make no pretension."[12] More Colored Conventions took place in the South during the late 1860s than the entire antebellum period.[11]

The post-war conventions culminated with the 1869 National Convention of Colored Men in Washington, D.C. The convention delegates wrote a letter congratulating General Ulysses S. Grant for being elected President of the United States, to which Grant responded, "I thank the Convention, of which you are the representative, for the confidence they have expressed, and I hope sincerely that the colored people of the Nation may receive every protection which the laws give to them. They shall have my efforts to secure such protection."[13]

During Reconstruction the national, state, and local Colored Conventions evolved into other kinds of state and national organizations. Delegates at the National Convention of Colored Men in Syracuse, NY founded the National Equal Rights Leagues and attempted to form state-level Equal Rights League chapters across the United States. In response to a denial of African American admittance to the National Labor Union, community leaders formed the Colored National Labor Union (CNLU) in December 1869.[14] Many former Colored Convention delegates, including Isaac Myers and Frederick Douglass, were instrumental in organizing the CNLU.[15]

Colored Conventions continued to take place in the late 1880s and 1890s, including Indianapolis in 1887 and state conventions in New Jersey, Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas.[16][11] The convention movement slowed by the end of the century.

Legacy[]

T. Thomas Fortune's National Afro-American League was formed in 1890 and held national and state-level meetings throughout the 1890s. From 1896 to 1914, W. E. B. Du Bois held an annual conference at Atlanta University of national importance. In 1898, bishop Alexander Walters founded the National Afro-American Council, which met annually until 1907 and with Fortune and Booker T. Washington playing prominent roles. In 1905, Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter met near Niagara Falls, Canada, founding the Niagara Movement.

Du Bois' continued activism and relationships forged at these meetings led to the foundation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) by Moorfield Storey, Mary White Ovington and Du Bois in 1909. It remains the organization par excellence in the area of Black organizing and advancement to the present day.

List of conventions[]

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ Yee, Shirley J. (1992). Black Women Abolitionists, A Study in Activism, 1828–1860. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press. pp. 143. ISBN 0870497367.
  2. ^ a b Casey, Jim (2021). Foreman, P. Gabrielle; Casey, Jim; Patterson, Sarah Lynn (eds.). The Colored Conventions Movement: Black Organizing in the Nineteenth Century. Chapel Hill, NC: UNC Press. p. 263. ISBN 978-1-4696-5426-3.
  3. ^ "Colored Conventions Project". Archived from the original on April 26, 2014. Retrieved April 26, 2014.
  4. ^ "Home". Colored Conventions Project. Retrieved December 19, 2021.
  5. ^ Bell, Howard. Minutes and Proceedings of the Negro Convention Movement. Argo. Archived from the original on April 16, 2014. Retrieved April 26, 2014.
  6. ^ Webber, Christopher L. (2011). American to the Backbone. New York: Pegasus Books. pp. 63. ISBN 9781605981758.
  7. ^ Bell, Howard (1969). A Survey of the Negro Convention Movement −1830-1861. New York: Arno Press. p. 10.
  8. ^ Ernest, John (2011). A Nation Within a Nation: Organizing African-American Communities Before the Civil War. Ivan R Dee. p. 107. ISBN 9781566638074.
  9. ^ Bell, Howard (1969). "1830, "Proceedings of the Convention," Philadelphia, PA" (PDF). Minutes and Proceedings of the National Negro Conventions, 1830–1864. New York: Arno Press. pp. 1–12.[dead link]
  10. ^ California State Convention of Colored Citizens, Sacramento (1865). Proceedings. The Library of Congress. San Francisco, Printed at the Office of "The Elevator,".
  11. ^ a b c "Colored Conventions Project Digital Records". omeka.coloredconventions.org. Retrieved December 19, 2021.
  12. ^ Harper's Weekly: 786. December 16, 1865. {{cite journal}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  13. ^ Harper's Weekly: 81–82. February 6, 1869. {{cite journal}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  14. ^ Rondinone, Troy. "Colored National Labor Union". Encyclopedia of American History: Civil War and Reconstruction, 1856 to 1869, Revised Edition, vol. V. Archived from the original on April 18, 2014. Retrieved April 17, 2014.
  15. ^ "Today in Labor History: Black workers form national union". December 6, 2012. Archived from the original on April 19, 2014. Retrieved April 17, 2014.
  16. ^ Harper's Weekly: 378. May 28, 1887. {{cite journal}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  17. ^ Yee, Shirley (April 1, 2011), National Negro Convention Movement (1831-1864), blackpast.org, retrieved September 2, 2020
  18. ^ Magazine, Smithsonian; Masur, Kate. "Decades Before the Civil War, Black Activists Organized for Racial Equality". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved January 30, 2022.
  19. ^ "Convention of the Colored People of Ohio". The Philanthropist. Kate Masur. September 8, 1837. Retrieved January 30, 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  20. ^ Hinton, R[ichard] J[osiah] (June 1889). "John Brown and his men, before and after the raid on Harper's Ferry, October 16th, 17th, 18th, 1859". Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly. 2 (6): 691–703, at pp. 695–696.
  21. ^ A History of the Club Movement Among the Colored Women of the United States of America as contained in the Minutes of the Conventions, Held in Boston, July 29, 30, 31, 1895, and of the National Federation of Afro-American Women, Held in Washington, D.C., July 20, 21, 22, 1896 (PDF). 1902. Retrieved June 1, 2021.
  22. ^ McPherson, James. M., ed. (1969). Proceedings of the National Negro Conference 1909. New York: New York Times and Arno Press. Retrieved May 30, 2021.

External links[]

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