The Massachusetts General Colored Association was organized in Boston in 1826 to combat slavery and racism. The Association was an early supporter of William Lloyd Garrison. Its influence spread locally and was realized within New England when they joined the New England Anti-Slavery Society in 1833.
Several members of the Prince Hall Lodge [nb 1] met in 1826 and established the Massachusetts General Colored Association "to promote the welfare of the race by working for the destruction of slavery." [1] [2] The elected officers were
One of their most influential founders was David Walker, who probably expressed many of their ideas in his 1829 Appeal in Four Articles to the Colored Citizens of the World. Walker had moved to Boston and in 1825 was the owner of a used clothing store. In March 1827, he began writing for and selling subscriptions to Freedom's Journal, the first national newspaper in the country published by blacks. [1]
Other founding members included Walker Lewis, John Scarlett, and John T. Hilton. [1] The organization was said to have had "among its leaders the most spirited and intelligent colored citizens of Boston." [2]
The organization was concerned with the following:
It was one of the first organizations of free blacks in Boston to directly address slavery. [2]
Association members were also active in organizations to furthered their objectives, such as the African Society, the African School and the African Baptist Church. [1] As Donald M. Jacobs remarked: "Boston's best-known black abolitionists were also dominant figures in the black churches." [3]
The group also supported the Freedom's Journal , the country's first black newspaper which was published in New York City. [1]
In January 1833, Dalton as president led a successful petition for the Massachusetts General Colored Association [4] to join the New England Anti-Slavery Society founded by William Lloyd Garrison, editor of The Liberator . Together they organized Anti-Slavery conventions and speaking programs throughout New England.
Sometime after Joshua Easton was sent as a delegate to the New England society in 1833, African Americans were granted full membership in the organization. [2]
In 1844, the Massachusetts General Colored Association published Light and Truth by Robert Benjamin Lewis, the first history of the colored race written by an African American. [5] Joining the New England Anti-Slavery Society provided greater participation by Boston's African American community. [6]
"Although the all-black association was short lived, its members helped create a new era of militant antislavery agitation that shook the nation before the Civil War." [1]
William Lloyd Garrison was an American abolitionist, journalist, and social reformer. He is best known for his widely read anti-slavery newspaper The Liberator, which Garrison founded in 1831 and published in Boston until slavery in the United States was abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865.
David Walker was an American abolitionist, writer, and anti-slavery activist. Though his father was enslaved, his mother was free; therefore, he was free as well. In 1829, while living in Boston, Massachusetts, with the assistance of the African Grand Lodge, he published An Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World, a call for black unity and a fight against slavery.
The American Anti-Slavery Society was an abolitionist society founded by William Lloyd Garrison and Arthur Tappan. Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave, had become a prominent abolitionist and was a key leader of this society, who often spoke at its meetings. William Wells Brown, also a freedman, also often spoke at meetings. By 1838, the society had 1,350 local chapters with around 250,000 members.
Arthur Tappan was an American businessman, philanthropist and abolitionist. He was the brother of Ohio Senator Benjamin Tappan and abolitionist Lewis Tappan, and nephew of Harvard Divinity School theologian Rev. Dr. David Tappan.
Charles Lenox Remond was an American orator, activist and abolitionist based in Massachusetts. He lectured against slavery across the Northeast, and in 1840 traveled to the British Isles on a tour with William Lloyd Garrison. During the American Civil War, he recruited blacks for the United States Colored Troops, helping staff the first two units sent from Massachusetts. From a large family of African-American entrepreneurs, he was the brother of Sarah Parker Remond, also a lecturer against slavery.
The New England Anti-Slavery Society (1831–1837) was formed by William Lloyd Garrison, editor of The Liberator, in 1831. The Liberator was its official publication.
The Liberator (1831–1865) was a weekly abolitionist newspaper, printed and published in Boston by William Lloyd Garrison and, through 1839, by Isaac Knapp. Religious rather than political, it appealed to the moral conscience of its readers, urging them to demand immediate freeing of the slaves ("immediatism"). It also promoted women's rights, an issue that split the American abolitionist movement. Despite its modest circulation of 3,000, it had prominent and influential readers, including all the abolitionist leaders, among them Frederick Douglass, Beriah Green, Arthur and Lewis Tappan, and Alfred Niger. It frequently printed or reprinted letters, reports, sermons, and news stories relating to American slavery, becoming a sort of community bulletin board for the new abolitionist movement that Garrison helped foster.
Thomas Dalton (1794–1883) was a free African American raised in Massachusetts who was dedicated to improving the lives of people of color. He was active with his wife Lucy Lew Dalton, Charlestown, Massachusetts, in the founding or ongoing activities of local educational organizations, including the Massachusetts General Colored Association, New England Anti-Slavery Society, Boston Mutual Lyceum, and Infant School Association, and campaigned for school integration, which was achieved in 1855.
William Cooper Nell was an American abolitionist, journalist, publisher, author, and civil servant of Boston, Massachusetts, who worked for the integration of schools and public facilities in the state. Writing for abolitionist newspapers The Liberator and The North Star, he helped publicize the anti-slavery cause. He published the North Star from 1847 to 1851, moving temporarily to Rochester, New York.
Francis Jackson (1789–1861) was an abolitionist in Boston, Massachusetts. He was president of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society for many years, was also president of the New England Anti-Slavery Conventions, and vice president of the American Anti-Slavery Society. He was also affiliated with the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society and the Boston Vigilance Committee. He worked for the South Cove Corporation, filling in land in Boston's South End in the 1830s.
Sarah Harris Fayerweather was an African-American activist, abolitionist, and school integrationist. Beginning in January 1833 at the age of twenty, she attended Prudence Crandall's Canterbury Female Boarding School in Canterbury, Connecticut, the first integrated school in the United States.
Susan Paul (1809–1841) was an African American abolitionist from Boston, Massachusetts. A primary school teacher and member of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society, Paul also wrote the first biography of an African American published in the United States. The book, Memoir of James Jackson, was published in 1835.
John Telemachus Hilton was an African-American abolitionist, author, and businessman, who established barber, furniture dealer, and employment agency businesses. He was a Prince Hall Mason and established the Prince Hall National Grand Lodge of North America and served as its first National Grand Master for ten years. He also was a founding member of the Massachusetts General Colored Association, and active member and author in the Anti-Slavery movement.
Isaac Knapp was an American abolitionist printer, publisher, and bookseller in Boston, Massachusetts. He is remembered primarily for his collaboration with William Lloyd Garrison in printing and publishing The Liberator newspaper.
James George Barbadoes was an African-American, community leader, and abolitionist in Boston, Massachusetts in the early 19th century. Dedicated to improving the lives of people of color at the local level, as well as the national level.
Ellis Gray Loring was an American attorney, abolitionist, and philanthropist from Boston. He co-founded the New England Anti-Slavery Society, provided legal advice to abolitionists, harbored fugitive slaves in his home, and helped finance the abolitionist newspaper, the Liberator. Loring also mentored Robert Morris, who went on to become one of the first African-American attorneys in the United States.
Joel W. Lewis was a prominent African-American businessman and abolitionist. He was among the best known and respected reformers in antebellum Boston.
Elizabeth Cook Riley was an African-American Bostonian abolitionist who aided in the escape of fugitive slave Shadrach Minkins. She was a member of the committee which raised the first funds towards William Lloyd Garrison's The Liberator, a prominent antislavery newspaper. Afterwards, she was active in the Boston abolitionist community, helping to organize meetings and events.
Eunice Russ Ames Davis was a multiracial abolitionist and one of the founding members of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society. In 1896, The New York Times named her the "oldest living female abolitionist in the world".