Writing and public speaking were key elements in the movements to end African enslavement and other forms of national oppression in the United States.

Going back to 1827, the first Black-owned English-language newspaper was published by Free Africans in New York City known as Freedom’s Journal which was founded by people such as Jamaican-born John Brown Russwurm, a graduate of Bowdoin College, the first African American to do so and only the third Black person to graduate from an United States college.

One of the co-founders of Freedom Journal’s, Samuel Eli Cornish, was born in Sussex County, Delaware. Cornish graduated from the Free African School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and also founded Shiloh Presbyterian Church, the first Black Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, in 1822. (Seethis)

Prior to the publication of Freedom’s Journal, Phillis Wheatley, a young African woman born in the Senegambia region published a book of poems in 1773. Her writings did much to refute the notion that African people were inherently inferior to Europeans. (Seethis)

Freedom’s Journal editorial policies were reflective of the debates taking place among Africans in the U.S. The newspaper was founded in the same year that chattel slavery was legally ended in the state of New York.

Some within the editorial staff advocated the repatriation of African people in the U.S. back to the West African state of Liberia. The American Colonization Society (ACS) was established to facilitate the removal of people of African descent whom it was believed could not live a fulfilling life in U.S. After two centuries of enslavement under the British, Dutch, French and Spanish, some Africans were compelled to migrate to the continent to build a life as an independent state.

Others believed that the primary task of free persons of color was to advocate and organize for the abolition of slavery. A series of national conferences were held beginning in the 1830s. Tracts such as David Walker’s Appeal were released in 1829 calling for African Americans to organize for their freedom.

One of the key literary and political figures in the campaigns to overturn the system of slavery was Maria Stewart. She emerged from the Northeast regional state of Connecticut in the U.S. and later became a highly educated, articulate lecturer and prolific writer during the 1830s.

Her writings were published by the Liberator newspaper founded by abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. As a printer as well as organizer, Garrison co-founded the newspaper with Isaac Knapp. He would play an important role in the founding of the New England and later American Anti-Slavery Society emanating from the Boston area which was a base for abolitionist activity.

In August 1831, a slave rebellion led by Nat Turner in Virginia created a sense of panic among the planters and their representatives within the U.S. Congress. Opponents of African enslavement became emboldened through the strengthening of the Underground Railroad and the proliferation of literature and public speaking against human bondage. Although the Atlantic Slave Trade was said to have been abolished by Britain and the U.S. during the first decade of the 19th century, the triangular marketing of Africans in exchange for money and commodities continued. The number of enslaved Africans dramatically increased between 1800 and 1860, the year of the presidential elections which precluded the Civil War (1861-65).

Source: Global Research