These writings shed light on her proto-intersectional ideas. In her 1831 pamphlet “Religion and the Pure Principles of Morality, The Sure Foundation on Which We Must Build,” Stewart critiqued both the prevailing racist assumption that Blacks were an inferior race and the sexist paternalism of men, all while calling on Black women to have more agency. She named race, gender, and class oppression in the form of economic exploitation of the labor of the “fair daughters of Africa.” She admonished Black women to wake up, rise up, and support one another through cooperative economies to gain economic independence. She considered a range of possibilities for Black women, from mothers and educators to intellectually and economically empowered contributors to the community. She called on Black women to “possess the spirit of men, bold and enterprising, fearless and undaunted. Sue for your rights and privileges. Know the reason you cannot attain them.”
In 1832 Stewart delivered a lecture at Franklin Hall in Boston. She called out racial prejudice and its specific impact on Black women and girls, limiting them to servile labor and ignoring their qualities beyond that service. In her 1833 “Farewell Address to Her Friends in the City of Boston,” she outlined diverse roles and expectations for women, especially Black women. Offering examples of women in the Bible as well as women from various cultures (Greek, Roman, Jewish, Ethiopian, and even “barbarous nations”), Stewart again made the case for Black women in particular to publicly demand their rights. And in her 1833 “Address Delivered at the African Masonic Hall,” Stewart critiqued Black men for their “talk, without effort.” The “gross neglect, on your part, causes my blood to boil within me.”
Beginning with Maria W. Stewart, Black women have been offering intersectional analyses of identity and oppression since at least the early nineteenth century. In addition to her foundational insights about intersecting identities and oppressions, Stewart has also been analyzed from the perspective of her religious and theological insights and interventions, her rhetorical strategies, and her appeals to sympathetic violence.
1834–1839
THE NATIONAL NEGRO CONVENTIONS
Eugene Scott
More than 150 years after Black Americans experienced the first tastes of freedom, a question still dominates the minds of those deeply invested in the fate of the descendants of the enslaved: what does it mean to be Black and free in the United States? Throughout the history of Black America, the media have played a significant role in finding answers to the most pressing race questions. And in many ways they continue to do so. However, in an era when many media outlets show little interest in grappling with these questions while others are simply struggling to remain viable, the ability—or willingness—of the press to replicate what it was once so effective at doing is concerning.
Since Black people first arrived in what would become the United States, freedom was without question their greatest desire. And that continued to be the case in those decades leading up to the abolition of slavery, even as attempts at emancipation became more frequent. But exactly what emancipation would look like for Black Americans was still unclear and debatable. While some Black thinkers and abolitionists entertained ideas of citizenship, others believed that formerly enslaved people could never be treated equally and with respect, so they advocated for racial separatism or emigration to the Caribbean or western Africa. Activists grappled with these ideas publicly and privately, but there was a need for a robust gathering where the leaders of the time could discuss the future of Black people. In 1834 those of great influence who were concerned with the state—and fate—of Black people in America congregated to find answers at National Negro Conventions, gatherings aimed at moving America toward abolition at the very least, in the hope that the formerly enslaved would command a more respected standing in the country and across the globe.
In the decades leading up to the Civil War, the question of what it meant to be Black in the United States was largely obvious but still diverse in its answer. In 1830, of the nearly 13 million people in the United States, 2 million were enslaved. This large ratio, combined with an increase in slave rebellions, like those led by Nat Turner and Denmark Vesey, had white enslavers on edge, as they realized that aggressive fights for freedom by the enslaved would become more frequent—and more violent—until freedom was granted. Although these rebellions often ended tragically, they gave many Black people hope. The desire for freedom spread across slave states, as some former slaves successfully reached the temporary promised land: free states. During this time the population of free Black Americans, particularly in the northern and western United States, was growing. However, most Black Americans remained enslaved, leading those who were experiencing freedom—and the white people who supported them—to increase their attention to arriving to the place where all were free. Freedom from slavery was certainly the initial goal for Black people. But as the movement to eradicate slavery grew, a new question arose: what would it mean to be Black in a postslavery America?
During the late 1830s, Black thought leaders, businesspeople, clergy, and many of their white counterparts gathered to answer this burgeoning question at the National Negro Conventions, events whose popularity was made known mainly through the efforts of the press. Two specific publications—Freedom’s Journal, the country’s first Black newspaper, and The Liberator, an abolitionist newspaper founded by William Lloyd Garrison—played major roles in gathering Black leaders from across the nation to answer this fundamental question while also seeking solutions for more complex ones. These publications, by elevating the National Negro Conventions, allowed Black people and abolitionists to form networks to move America toward freeing—and advancing the lives of—enslaved people, with a level of urgency and efficiency that was previously unseen. Without them, influential minds could hardly have gathered to develop the strategies required for Black people to receive the justice they had long been denied. This model would be replicated decades later, when the Black press played an influential role in pointing leaders in the Black community (and those who supported them) toward the NAACP’s national conventions; the National Urban League’s State of Black America; and other events aimed at zeroing in on the most pressing issues facing Black Americans.
One of the most significant contributions of the National Negro Conventions was their vision to encourage the continued gathering of those who cared about the future of Black people in the United States and beyond. Those in attendance gave much attention to the freeing of Black people, but they also recognized that there were issues plaguing the Black community beyond the need for emancipation. They gave significant attention to topics related to the global fate of Black people and internal conflicts within the Black community related to gender and even diversity of political thought. For them, freedom for Black people went beyond freedom from slavery. It also meant having their humanity acknowledged and having the ability to live their lives to the fullest.
The meaning of freedom pertaining to Black people is a question much older than the United States. Quests to determine and experience a free life for Black Americans reach back to the earliest colonial settlements. Yet centuries later, de facto segregation continues, mass incarceration remains prevalent, and significant gaps between the lived experiences of Black and white people in health, education, and wealth persist. The question remains prevalent today and in many ways has taken on deeper significance. Although slavery has been legally abolished, freedom for many Black Americans seems like a far cry from the vision of freedom described by the founders in the Constitution.
1839–1844
RACIAL PASSING
Allyson Hobbs
October 4, 1842
George Latimer and his pregnant wife, Rebecca, made a desperate leap for liberty. They escaped from Norfolk, Virginia, hiding in the hold of a ship for nine hours. They stole away to Baltimore, then to Philadelphia, before arriving in Boston.
Four days after Latimer’s escape, Latimer’s owner
, James Gray, described Latimer’s complexion as “a bright yellow” in an advertisement. Latimer was able to pass as white, so he “travelled as a gentleman” while his wife traveled as his servant. While boarding the ship in Norfolk, Latimer walked by a man he knew. He quickly pulled his Quaker hat over his eyes, entered the first-class cabin, and was not recognized.
In antebellum America, runaway slaves wore white skin like a cloak. Racial ambiguity, appropriate dress—Latimer’s Quaker hat, for instance—and proper comportment could mask one’s enslaved status and provide a strategy for escape. Once Latimer was seated in the first-class cabin, it would have been impolite for a passenger or a conductor to question his racial identity.
Tactical or strategic passing—passing temporarily with a particular purpose in mind—was born out of a dogged desire for freedom. In later historical periods, this type of passing would allow racially ambiguous men and women to access employment opportunities, to travel without humiliation, and to attend elite colleges. In the antebellum period, passing was connected to a larger struggle and to strivings for freedom.
The countless men and women who passed successfully demonstrate that even in the most totalizing systems, there is always some slack. Passing was an expedient means of securing one’s freedom, and in its broadest formulation, it became a crucial channel through which African Americans called for the recognition of their humanity. The desperate acts of enslaved men and women were not freighted with the internal conflicts, tensions, or moral angst of other historical periods. Surrounded by loss, enslaved people were motivated by a desire to be reunited with their families, not to leave them behind. Many runaway slaves neither imagined nor desired to begin new lives as white. They simply wanted to be free.
Latimer had been beaten severely while he was enslaved, sometimes in front of his wife. When he was returning from the market with Rebecca, his owner struck him with a stick across his jaw, bruising his skin. His owner followed Latimer to a store, where he hit him with a stick nearly twenty times. Latimer said that if he were captured, he expected to be “beaten and whipped 39 lashes, and perhaps to be washed in pickle afterwards.”
“We all know on a certain, almost intuitive level that violence is inseparable from slavery,” historian Nell Painter has written. “We readily acknowledge the existence of certain conventions associated with slavery: the use of physical violence to make slaves obedient and submissive, the unquestioned right of owners to use people they owned in whatever ways they wished.”
Shortly after Latimer and his wife reached Boston, James Gray arrived in the city and had Latimer arrested on a charge of larceny. Nearly three hundred Black men gathered around the courthouse to prevent Latimer from being returned to Gray, who planned to send Latimer back to Virginia. A chaotic meeting in Faneuil Hall roused public sympathy for Latimer and sharpened abolitionists’ demands for legislation to protect fugitive slaves.
Latimer’s escape took place in 1842, the same year as Prigg v. Pennsylvania. This decision allowed states to forbid officials from cooperating with federal legislation like the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, which guaranteed slave owners the right to recover runaway slaves. The Prigg decision was later overturned by the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which required free states to support the capture and delivery of fugitive slaves, even if it meant deputizing local law enforcement.
In November 1842, Latimer’s supporters in Boston founded a newspaper, the Latimer Journal and North Star. With a circulation of twenty thousand, the Journal sought to raise public support for fugitive slaves among antislavery Bostonians. In an interview, an editor asked Latimer if he had ever led Gray or anyone else to believe that he wanted to return to Norfolk. “No, never,” Latimer declared. “I would rather die than go back.” James Gray tried to get Latimer to return willingly, to avoid all the trouble and the chaos created by the meeting in Faneuil Hall. Gray promised to “serve [Latimer] well.” Latimer turned his back on Gray and stated bluntly: “Mr. Gray, when you get me back to Norfolk you may kill me.”
What about Rebecca? We know very little about her besides what was published in an advertisement after she escaped:
RANAWAY from the subscriber last evening, negro Woman REBECCA, in company (as is supposed) with her husband, George Latimer, belonging to Mr. James B. Gray, of this place. She is about 20 years of age, dark mulatto or copper colored, good countenance, bland voice and self-possessed and easy in her manners when addressed.—She was married in February last [1842] and at this time obviously enceinte [pregnant]. She will in all probability endeavor to reach some one of the free States. All persons are hereby cautioned against harboring said slave, and masters of vessels from carrying her from this port. The above reward [$50] will be paid upon delivery to Mary D. Sayer.
Rebecca must have ached for freedom just as desperately as her husband did, not only for herself but also for the unborn child that she carried on their perilous journey.
Who was Mary D. Sayer? Did she own Rebecca? Perhaps her husband did. Her status as a white woman may have depended on Rebecca’s labor. Perhaps Sayer stood high on the social ladder (but never at the top, a space occupied exclusively by white men). She lived with the discomfort of knowing that, as Painter explains, white men had unfettered sexual access to all women and saw “women—whether slave or free, wealthy or impoverished, cultured or untutored, black or white—as interchangeable.” There was nothing that Mary Sayer could do to prevent her husband from sleeping with enslaved women, who in turn were forced to be readily available sexual partners.
On November 18, 1842, Latimer was finally manumitted for $400 and could not be returned to Virginia. In 1843 approximately sixty-five thousand residents signed a petition, which led to passage of the “Latimer Law,” a liberty law that (1) prevented state officials from assisting in the arrest of fugitive slaves, (2) forbade the use of jails to detain fugitive slaves, and (3) formally separated Massachusetts residents from any connection with slavery. Judges, justices of the peace, and other state officers could not legally assist in the arrest of any fugitive slave.
In an autobiographical sketch published in the same year as the Latimer Law, Latimer wrote that he had always imagined running away, even as a child. He would roll up his sleeve and wonder, “Can this flesh belong to any man as horses do?”
We can only imagine the conversation that George and Rebecca Latimer shared as they lay in the hold of the ship for nine hours during their flight from Norfolk. Maybe they pictured their lives as free people. Maybe they talked about their dreams for their child and touched Rebecca’s growing stomach. Maybe they worried that George’s disguise as a white man might fail. Maybe they did not speak a word to each other. What we do know is that these two souls believed deeply in their humanity, and that they risked everything for it to be recognized.
1844–1849
JAMES MCCUNE SMITH, M.D.
Harriet A. Washington
The Negro “with us” is not an actual physical being of flesh and bones and blood, but a hideous monster of the mind, ugly beyond all physical portraying…that haunts with grim presence the precincts of this republic, shaking his gory locks over legislative halls and family prayers.
—James McCune Smith, M.D.
The University of Glasgow began its 2020–21 academic year with the unveiling of the £90.6 million James McCune Smith Learning Hub. This steel-and-glass shrine to modernity also celebrates the past, because it is named for one of the institution’s most revered alumni—James McCune Smith, M.D. (1813–65), who graduated as valedictorian of the medical school in 1837.
Today thirty annual university scholarships and the annual James McCune Smith Memorial Lecture bear his name, as do signs in Glasgow’s historic “slave walk.” The McCune Smith Café offers Scottish delicacies, an “anticolonialist menu,” and African coffees on the site of his former Duke Street home.
But in New York City, this Renaissance m
an—erudite classicist, writer, abolitionist, apothecary, and statistician who was also the first African American to be awarded a formal medical degree—is all but forgotten.
He was born to a white father and an enslaved mother who later earned her freedom, as did James. He grew up in Lower Manhattan’s Fourth Ward, where at the African Free School number two on Mulberry Street he earned excellent grades, achieved fluency in Greek and Latin, and displayed a rare facility for writing. He wished to attend university and study medicine, but every U.S. university to which he applied rejected him—evidence of the race-based exclusion that was widely practiced in both Northern and Southern schools, sometimes into the 1960s.
McCune Smith was, however, accepted by the elite University of Glasgow, and local abolitionist groups raised funds that enabled him to sail in 1832 to Scotland. There he earned academic laurels, assumed leadership in the Glasgow Emancipation Society, and inspired the university to eschew its significant profits from enslavement.
Yet McCune Smith was determined to return home after graduation and wield his education against American enslavement. He sailed back to New York City in May 1837.
Once ensconced in New York, McCune Smith proved far more than an incisive abolitionist who wrote for Frederick Douglass’s The North Star. He opened a medical practice in Manhattan, established the nation’s first African American apothecary, and served as the physician of the New York Colored Orphans Asylum. He married Malvina Barnet, and they started a family.
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