The Meeting that Launched a Movement: The First National Convention

The Convention’s Address

portrait of Richard Allen

Richard Allen, Founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Richard Allen, founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, delivered the 1830 convention’s address.

portrait of Henry Highland Garnet

Henry Highland Garnet

Henry Highland Garnet, who joined the tradition of addressing colored conventions and delivered one of the most memorable addresses of the movement, “An Address to the Slaves of the United States” at both the 1843 and 1847 national conventions.

portrait of Bishop Henry M. Turner

Bishop Henry M. Turner

Bishop Henry McNeal Turner, who, over six decades after Allen’s address, organized and addressed a convention in Georgia in 1893 advocating, once again, for mass emigration. Like Bishop Allen, Bishop Turner was also the leader of the AME Church.

Throughout the Colored Conventions Movement, Black leaders from Frederick Douglass, to Henry Highland Garnet, to Bishop Henry McNeal Turner used the tradition of the convention’s “address” to advocate for political positions and to demonstrate oratory mastery, a tradition that was launched in the 1830 convention. Bishop Richard Allen delivered the 1830 convention’s address. In it, he describes Upper Canada as a place of great opportunity for the Black population where land is cheap, economic advance feasible, and the government makes “no invidious distinction on the basis of race.”

Read the address here. It begins on page 8.

By all accounts, Richard Allen was a legendary orator. Newman writes that “when preaching,” Richard Allen’s “eyes flashed, commanding the respect of everyone around him.” He quotes Henry Garnet, “They seemed to blaze with a fire that attracted the attention of all who beheld them”. 

 

Reference

[1] Newman, Richard S. Freedom’s Prophet: Bishop Richard Allen, the AME Church, and the Black Founding Fathers. New York: New York University Press, 2008.