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”
Reconstruction began in Federally-occupied Louisiana in the midst of the Civil War. In 1863 African American men in New Orleans called for the right to vote in the new loyal government being organized under Union Army protection. However when President Lincoln announced his new reconstruction … Read More(1864) Arnold Bertonneau, “Every Man Should Stand Equal Before the Law”
By September, 1863 African American men were entering their ninth month of service in the United States Army. They had already shown their valor at Fort Wagner in South Carolina and Port Hudson in Louisiana as well as dozens of other battle sites from Virginia … Read More(1863) J. Stanley, “A Tribute To A Fallen Black Soldier”
African Americans throughout the North held meetings and church services on January 1, 1863 to celebrate the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation. Almost always the festivities revolved around a central speaker. One of those speeches was delivered by Rev. Jonathan C. Gibbs, pastor of the … Read More(1863) Rev. Jonathan C. Gibbs, “Freedom’s Joyful Day”
