On August 3, 1857, Frederick Douglass delivered a “West India Emancipation” speech at Canandaigua, New York, on the twenty-third anniversary of the event. Most of the address was a history of British efforts toward emancipation as well as a reminder of the crucial role of … Read More(1857) Frederick Douglass, “If There Is No Struggle, There Is No Progress”
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”
In January 1856, Sara G. Stanley, representing the Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society of Delaware, Ohio, addressed the all-male Convention of Disfranchised Citizens of Ohio who met at the Columbus City Hall. She called upon the forty delegates who included among their ranks John Mercer Langston, Peter … Read More(1856) Sara G. Stanley Addresses The Convention Of Disfranchised Citizens Of Ohio
In September 1855, the Supreme Court of Massachusetts ruled in Boston v. Roberts that a separate school could not be maintained at taxpayer expense by the city of Boston. This decision marked the first significant victory in what would be a 99 year struggle to … Read More(1855) William C. Nell, “The Triumph Of Equal School Rights In Boston”
On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass was invited to address the citizens of his hometown, Rochester, New York. Whatever the expectations of his audience on that 76th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Douglass used the occasion not to celebrate the nation’s … Read More(1852) Frederick Douglass, “What, To The Slave, Is The Fourth Of July”
Lucy Stanton was probably the first African American woman to complete a four-year collegiate course of study. Stanton, the daughter of John Brown, a Cleveland barber active in the Underground Railroad, enrolled in nearby Oberlin Collegiate Institute (now Oberlin College) in northern Ohio. The institution … Read More(1850) Lucy Stanton, “A Plea for the Oppressed”
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”
Image Ownership: Public Domain On June 8, 1849, Frederick Douglass gave a major oration at Faneuil Hall in Boston soon after he returned from Europe. The speech addressed a number of issues including the politics of Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky. After his main address, … Read More(1849) Frederick Douglass, “On Mexico”
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
