Speech Time Frame: To 1800
(1787) Jupiter Hammon, “An Address to the Negroes in the State of New York”
Long Island-born Jupiter Hammon is believed to be the first published male African American poet and essayist. His “Evening Thought,...
(1797) Abraham Johnstone, “Address To The People Of Color”
In 1797 Abraham Johnstone, a former slave born in Delaware was convicted in Glocester County, New Jersey of murdering Thomas...
(1797) Prince Hall Speaks To The African Lodge, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Five years after his presentation at Charles Town, Prince Hall again addresses his fellow Masons. In an address delivered to...
(1792) Prince Hall, “A Charge Delivered to the Brethren of the African Lodge”
Barbadian-born Prince Hall spent the first thirty-five years of his life enslaved. Twenty-one of those years he was owned by...
(1789) An Unknown Free Black Author Describes Slavery In 1789
We don’t know the name of one of the earliest orators against slavery. He was a West Indian who apparently...
