To Plead Our Own Cause: African Americans in Massachusetts and the Making of the Antislavery Movement

Christopher Cameron
6:30 p.m. Tues, Jan. 30, 2018, UNC Charlotte Center City

Cameron is associate professor of history and is the founder and president of the African American Intellectual History Society.

The antislavery movement entered an important new phase when William Lloyd Garrison began publishing the Liberator in 1831 — a phase marked by massive petition campaigns, the extraordinary mobilization of female activists, and the creation of organizations such as the American Anti-Slavery Society. The work of Garrison’s predecessors in Massachusetts was critical in laying the foundation for antebellum abolitionism.

Cameron explores the significant contributions of African Americans in the Bay State to both local and nationwide antislavery activity before 1831 and demonstrates that their efforts represent the beginning of organized abolitionist activity in America. Using Calvinist theology and revolutionary ideology, blacks pled their own cause in the fight for freedom.