Colored Conventions: Bringing Nineteenth-Century Black Organizing to Digital Life (Web Resource) [show prizes]
Title: Colored Conventions: Bringing Nineteenth-Century Black Organizing to Digital Life
Author: P. Gabrielle Foreman
Abstract: From 1830 until the 1890s, already free and once captive Black people came together in state and national political meetings called "Colored Conventions." Before the War, they strategized about how to achieve educational, labor and legal justice at a moment when Black rights were constricting nationally and locally. After the War, their numbers swelled as they continued to mobilize to ensure that Black citizenship rights and safety, Black labor rights and land, Black education and institutions would be protected under the law. The delegates to these meetings included the most well-known, if mostly male, writers, organizers, church leaders, newspaper editors, and entrepreneurs in the canon of early African-American leadership—and thousands whose names and histories have long been forgotten. What is left of this phenomenal effort are rare proceedings, newspaper coverage, and petitions that have never before been collected in one place. This project seeks to not only learn about the lives of male delegates, the places where they met and the social networks that they created, but also to account for the crucial work done by Black women in the broader social networks that made these conventions possible. Please see the About Us page for information about the project team.
Year: 2016
Primary URL: http://coloredconventions.org/

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