John Willis Menard, (1838-1893) was the first African American elected to Congress when on November 3, 1868 he received the majority of votes to fill the unexpired term of Louisiana Second District Congressman James Mann. On the strength of the vote Menard went to Washington … Read More(1869) John Willis Menard, “Speech Before the United States House of Representatives”
In an 1867 speech in Boston, Frederick Douglass challenged most social observers and politicians (including most African Americans) by advocating the acceptance of Chinese immigration. His argument is presented below. As nations are among the largest and the most complete divisions into which society is … Read More(1867) Frederick Douglass Describes The “Composite Nation”
African Methodist Episcopal minister and later Bishop Henry McNeal Turner emerged immediately after the Civil War as one of the most ardent defenders of African Ameriacn rights. Turner was also among the first group of Reconstruction-era African American elected officials. In July 1868, Turner was … Read More(1868) Rev. Henry McNeal Turner, “I Claim the Rights of a Man”
Francis Louis Cardozo, the freeborn son of an African American woman and a Jewish economist, was born in Charleston, South Carolina in 1837. Through his personal savings and a thousand dollar scholarship, Cardozo attended the University of Glasgow and later a theological school in London. … Read More(1868) Francis Cardozo Urges The Dissolution Of The Plantation System
John Sella Martin was born into slavery in Charlotte, North Carolina. He was carried to Georgia and escaped from there to the North in 1856. Martin lived successively in Chicago, Detroit and Buffalo, where by that point he was a minister and led a church … Read More(1867) John Sella Martin, A Speech Before the Paris Antislavery Conference
On March 2, 1867, Congress overrode President Andrew Johnson’s vetoes and passed a series of Reconstruction acts which would, among other things, establish new governments in the ex-Confederate states based for the first time on universal male suffrage. The first step in this process involved … Read More(1867) Rev. E. J. Adams, “These are Revolutionary Times”
When James Lynch gave the speech that appears below, his great achievements lay in the future. Born in Baltimore in 1839, Lynch at the age of 24 went to South Carolina as one of the first A.M.E. missionaries to the freedmen and women. From 1866 … Read More(1865) James Lynch, “Colored Men Standing in the Way of their Own Race”
On February 12, 1865, Rev. Henry Highland Garnet, a former slave who was pastor of the Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., became the first African American to speak in the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. His sermon was delivered on Sunday, February 12, … Read More(1865) Henry Highland Garnet, “Let The Monster Perish”
On January 13, 1864, Frederick Douglass was invited to deliver a speech before the Woman’s Loyal League at the Cooper Institute in New York City. He used the occasion to add his voice to the ongoing debate about the mission and meaning of the Civil … Read More(1864) Frederick Douglass “The Mission Of The War”
As African Americans entered the Union Army in early 1863, they quickly found that racial discrimination followed them. The pay differential was one of the most egregious Federal discriminatory policies. African American soldiers were paid $10 per month, $3 of which was deducted for clothing, … Read More(1864) Rev. J. P. Campbell, “Give Us Equal Pay and We Will Go To War”
