Colored Convention Movement 345he strongly supported the colored convention movement.
Lewis Tappan stated that the colored conventions trans-
formed the white antislavery movement. Men slouch as
Cornish, Forten, Th eodore S. Wright, William Hamilton,
and many others clarifi ed for many whites why coloniza-
tion was wrong and what ulterior purposes the ACS really
served. Even William Wilberforce, the leading abolitionist
in England, was infl uenced by the reports and letters he re-
ceived from the colored convention members, leading him
to renounce the ACS as well.
It was this demonstration of organizational ability that
led the newly formed New England Antislavery Society in
1833 to ask African Americans to form auxiliary societies.
From the very beginning, though, the black leadership’s fu-
sion with the Garrison-led American Anti-Slavery Society
was problematic. At the fi rst meeting, the public records in-
dicate that the six blacks seated had little to no involvement
in the debates and the formation of policies and procedures,
nor did they hold any positions of authority as offi cers or
serve on any executive committees. And this trend was to
continue up through the Civil War. It appears that despite
Garrison’s endorsement, there was considerable controversy
over whether blacks should be allowed membership in the
societies or even be allowed to attend the meetings. Th e
same tension existed in the female antislavery societies.
Th e lack of progress overall from the apolitical and
pacifi st philosophy espoused by Garrisonians led may
African American leaders to go their own way by the late
1830s. Th e formation of the AASS’s doctrine of pacifi sm
and their entreaty to those enslaved to reject violence as a
means of obtaining their freedom was infl uenced by David
Walker’s pamphlet in 1829 and Nat Turner’s insurrection in- Walker’s Appeal called for white Americans to abolish
slavery, or else blacks in militant self-assertion would do
so through force. Th e broad support and participation of
blacks within the American Anti-Slavery Society and their
adherence to the principles of the organization success-
fully suppressed the message of the black visionaries that
emerged at the time, diff using black radical autonomous
thought. Yet at the last national convention in 1835, the fi rst
institutional rejection of pacifi sm occurred, calling for ac-
tive resistance and civil disobedience.
From 1835 onward, there was a shift in the black leader-
ship’s relationship with the AASS, and by 1840, some blacks
were participating in the Liberty Party, a third party move-
ment founded in 1840 by abolitionists who were supportive
to send fi ve delegates to the annual conventions; unorga-
nized groups were to send one delegate. However, by 1834,
the delegates rejected emigration and established that their
goal was to support black civil rights and the mutual pro-
tection of all black people.
Th e broader purpose of the convention was to galva-
nize all free black Americans to fi ght to raise their status in
America and to fi ght vehemently against slavery. Conven-
tion members affi rmed that they were against the Ameri-
can Colonization Society (ACS), an organization dedicated
to the expatriation of blacks to Liberia, by stating that it
was beneath barbarism to force a harmless people to leave
the land of their birth and that Africans would surely reject
this form of Christianity. By unequivocally stating that they
viewed America as their home, they hardily rejected the
ACS’s claims that African Americans were outsiders and
not fi t for citizenship.
Th e phrase “we the people” recurs frequently in the
convention’s appeals for unity, cooperation, and mutual aid,
refl ecting an early Black Nationalism. Th eir constitution
articulated the ways in which economic, social, and edu-
cation gains could be achieved. Again refl ecting the ideals
of Black Nationalism, the convention members argued that
they needed black-led initiatives not only to improve edu-
cation, but also to inform white America of the injustices
that plagued the black community across the nation.
Th ey were particularly concerned about how eff ec-
tively the ACS used racial hatred to harness the opinions
of white citizens into believing that blacks were innately
inferior and depraved and into believing in the divine sanc-
tion of slavery. Benjamin Lundy, Arthur and Lewis Tappan,
Gerrit Smith, Henry Clay, William Lloyd Garrison, and a
host of other white abolitionists all believed in the mission
of the ACS and questioned why blacks would want to stay
in a country where they were not wanted. Black leaders
understood that unless they did something to counter the
propaganda of the ACS, their condition would become in-
stitutionalized into the American social and ultimately civil
fabric of the nation. Again, their fears were not unfounded;
the language of the ACS certainly encouraged the pogroms
of the 1830s that plagued the northern black community
in such cities as Manhattan, Cincinnati, Providence, and
Philadelphia.
When William Lloyd Garrison was invited to attend
the second colored convention in 1831, it transformed his
views on the ACS and gradual emancipation, and thereaft er,