Seminar
Free Blacks in Antebellum America
- Date
- February 10, 2007
- Speaker
- Dr. Leslie M. Alexander, Assistant Professor of History, The Ohio State University
- Description
Following the American Revolution, the Northern states began the slow and complex process of abolishing slavery in their region of the United States. As a result, in a time when chattel slavery still dominated most of American society, Black people in the North were struggling to establish themselves as a free people. Yet the transition from slavery to emancipation proved to be complicated and treacherous, as newly emancipated African Americans struggled to obtain equality and citizenship. Excluded from mainstream American society, free Blacks responded to their continuing oppression by considering various (and sometimes contradictory) strategies including moral improvement, institution building, and emigration. Often these differences regarding political strategy threatened the unity of the Black community, however they remained committed to fight for full abolition, protect fugitive slaves, and gain the unrestricted right to vote.
This seminar explores the development of free Black communities in the North in the era before the Civil War. In particular, we will examine the legacy of Northern slavery, methods of Northern emancipation, strategic debates among the Black leadership over race uplift agendas, and Black political agitation on the issues of abolition, colonization and suffrage.
- Location
- 2080 Citygate Dr. Columbus, OH 43219 [view map]
