If I had a thousand tongues and each tongue were a thousand thunderbolts and each thunderbolt had a thousand voices, I would use them all today to help you understand a loyal and misrepresented and misjudged people.” These were the words of Joseph C. Price, founder and President of Livingston College in North Carolina, who in 1890 delivered an address to the National Education Association annual convention held in Minneapolis. Price’s words reflect on the long tradition of African American oratory. Listed below are some of the most significant orations by African Americans with links to the actual speeches.
Rev. Theodore S. Wright, (1797-1847) was born to free parents in Providence, Rhode Island. By the 1830s Wright was pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in New York City and a conductor on the Underground Railroad. Wright, a dedicated abolitionist, attended the New York State … Read More(1837) Theodore S. Wright, “Prejudice Against the Colored Man”
Few Americans are aware of the deep roots of peace activism in the African American community. Benjamin Banneker, the 18th Century mathematician and astronomer, recommended that a “Secretary of Peace” be added to the President’s cabinet whose chief function would be to craft measures to … Read More(1837) William Whipper, “Non-Resistance to Offensive Aggression”
In the speech below Angelina Grimke Weld, who was born to a prominent slaveholding family in Charleston, South Carolina, invites the women and men of Philadelphia to join her in the campaign against slavery. Men, brethren and fathers — mothers, daughters and sisters, what came … Read More(1838) Angelina Grimké Weld, “Speech in Pennsylvania Hall”
Image Ownership: Public Domain In February 1838, Angelina Grimke became the first woman in U.S. history to address the members of an American legislative body when she spoke to the members of the Massachusetts Legislature. Her subject was the demand for the immediate end of … Read More(1838) Angelina Grimke, “Address to the Massachusetts Legislature”
James McCune Smith (1813-1865) was a prominent physician and abolitionist. Smith was educated in the African Free School in New York City. When failing to be admitted to any American college, he enrolled in Glasgow University in Scotland in 1832 and earned three degrees including … Read More(1838) James McCune Smith, “The Abolition Of Slavery And The Slave Trade In The French And British Colonies”
On May 17, 1838, abolitionist Sara T. Smith addresses the second Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women which was originally scheduled to be held in Pennsylvania Hall. The meeting however was moved when anti-abolitionist mobs, upon learning of the Convention, burned the hall to the ground. … Read More(1838) Sara T. Smith, “Loosening the Bonds of Prejudice”
Andrew Harris, (1810-1841), graduated from the University of Vermont in 1838. One year later in an address delivered to nearly five thousand abolitionists at New York City’s Broadway Tabernacle on May 7, 1839, young Harris argued that slavery in the South influenced racism in the … Read More(1839) Andrew Harris, “Slavery Presses Down Upon the Free People of Color”
Daniel A. Payne was born on February 24, 1811, in Charleston, South Carolina, the son of free blacks. Educated at a Charleston school established by free blacks and by a private tutor, he mastered mathematics, Greek, Latin, and French. In 1826 Payne joined the Methodist … Read More(1839) Daniel A. Payne, “Slavery Brutalizes Man”
On April 23, 1839, Peter Paul Simmons gave an address before the African Clarkson Association of New York City. He challenged the then standard call for moral uplift and reform among African Americans and instead called for black Americans to employ more aggressive strategies and … Read More(1839) Peter Paul Simmons, “We Must Remain Active”
Image Ownership: Public Domain Frederick Douglass would eventually become one of the most skilled and powerful orators of his day. In 1841, three years after he escaped slavery and settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts, 34-year-old Douglass gave a brief speech on a situation he had … Read More(1841) Frederick Douglass, “The Church and Prejudice”
