William J. Seymour was born in Centerville, Louisiana, to former slaves Simon and Phillis Seymour, who raised him in the Baptist church. While living in Cincinnati, Ohio, he was influenced by holiness teachings, and then he moved to Houston, Texas, where he heard Charles Fox … Read MoreWilliam J. Seymour (1870-1922)
Walter Moses Burton holds the distinction of being the first black elected sheriff in the United States. Burton was also a State Senator in Texas. Burton was brought to Fort Bend County, Texas as a slave from North Carolina in 1850 at the age of twenty-one. … Read MoreWalter Moses Burton (1829?-1913)
Frances Ellen Watkins was born of free parents in Baltimore in 1825. After teaching in New York and Pennsylvania Watkins became a full-time abolitionist speaker for the Maine Anti-Slavery Society. By the 1850s she was one of the most noted speakers on that subject as … Read More(1857) Frances Ellen Watkins, “Liberty For Slaves”
Image Ownership: Public Domain Samuel Ringgold Ward (1817-1864), was one of the most prominent of the anti-slavery speakers in the nation by the 1850s. Born into slavery in Maryland, he escaped with his mother to New Jersey. In 1834 when he was 17 Ward was … Read More(1850) Samuel Ringgold Ward, “Speech on the Fugitive Slave Bill”
A month after the infamous Fugitive Slave Act was passed by Congress, Rev. Jermain Wesley Loguen (1813-1872), a fugitive slave from Tennessee, persuaded his adopted hometown, Syracuse, New York, to declare that city a refuge for liberated slaves. On October 4, 1850, the people of … Read More(1850) Rev. Jermain Wesley Loguen, “I Won’t Obey the Fugitive Slave Law”
By the 1840s a number of fugitive slaves, the most prominent being Frederick Douglass, took to the lecture circuit usually appearing before abolitionist societies where they told their personal stories of bondage. The speech of Lewis Richardson, however, attracted particular attention because he had escaped … Read More(1846) Lewis Richardson, “I am Free From American Slavery” 1846
Frederick Douglass described his early life in an address titled, “My Slave Experience in Maryland, “in a speech delivered in New York City on May 6, 1845. The speech, which was reprinted in the National Antislavery Standard on May 22, 1845, appears below. Douglass had … Read More(1845) Frederick Douglass, “My Slave Experience in Maryland”
The National Negro Convention of 1843 was held in Buffalo, New York drawing some seventy delegates a dozen states. Among the delegates were young, rising leaders in the African American community including Frederick Douglass, William Wells Brown, Charles B. Ray and Charles L. Remond. Twenty-seven … Read More(1843) Henry Highland Garnet, “An Address to the Slaves of the United States”
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”
In 1827 Rev. Nathaniel Paul, a minister in Albany, New York, hails the final abolition of slavery in that state. His address given on July 5, 1827 in Albany marks that occassion. The address appears below. We look forward with pleasing anticipation to that period, when … Read More(1827) Rev. Nathaniel Paul Hails The End Of Slavery In New York
