Author: Graiden Allen

Germantown Quaker Petition Against Slavery (1688)

Authority, Black, Consciousness Raising, Date, Defining the Enemy, Disruptive Spaces, Institutions, Pre-Modern, Subjectives of Refusal, Tactics of Disruption, White Supremacy

This petition served as the first official written protest of slavery in the new world. While it is not a direct rebellion, or call for physical action, the petition and German Quaker organization critiqued slavery for its moral violations of Christian ethics. More accurately, this petiton can be viewed as a call for collective reflection rather than collective action on the issue of slavery in British North America. Because it was only passed along through Quaker governing bodies, this document failed to bring about much driect or disruptive action. It did however, set quite the precedent for future abolitionist movements. While the immorality argument against slavery seems to be a common theme in abolitionist movements now, this petition was the first time morality was utilized to spark a change in social structure.

Germantown-Quaker-Petition-Against-SlaveryDownload
The_1688_Germantown_Quaker_petition_against_slavery-2Download

Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee Manifesto (1944)

1840-1945, Authority, Consciousness Raising, Date, Defining the Enemy, Disruptive Spaces, Institutions, Tactics of Disruption

This document, regularly known as the Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee Manifesto, attempts to ignite a united response against the violation(s) of their constitutional rights. This committee and the ensuing manifesto were primarily focused on protesting the forced conscription of imprisoned Japanese-Americans into the United States Army. The argument in this manifesto is quite intriguing in its underlying tone of civic pride. While they are demanding an upheaval of the discrimination placed against them, they are still eager and willing to defend the constitutional rights not being granted to them. This committee did not carry a tone of animosity in its argument(s), but rather called for justice and free will to be restored to all individuals who called themselves American. The Japanese-Americans, through this committee, were not looking for a dramatic or revolutionary upheaval of the system, but rather a return to the promises and institutions that founded the United States.

We would gladly sacrifice our lives to protect and uphold the principles and ideals of our country as set forth in the Constitution and Bill of Rights, for on its inviolability depends the freedom, liberty, justice, and protection of all people including Japanese-Americans and all other minority groups.

Fair-Play-Committee-Bulletin-3-March-1-1944Download

People of Colour (1827)

Uncategorized

On March 23, 1827, an article was published in the Freedom’s Journal, which outlined from the guise of a “Christian Spectator,” the systemic abominations of the slave trade. Published 34 years before the Civil War began, this article outlines one of the many abolitionist perspectives of the period leading up to the war’s institutionalized abolition. While this article is written with a religious background, most of the piece is talking about very specific abominations of the slave trade, with a moral and religious theme residing very faintly in the background. The Freedom’s Journal serves as the first African American-owned and operated newspaper in the United States, and was a collection and public platform for any enslaved individual to speak directly for themselves and advocate directly for their individual and cultural rights. Although many papers and publications before and after the Civil War advocated for the rights ofc enslaved people, this paper was founded on the premise that enslaved people should plead their own cause, arguing that for too long others had advocated for their rights indirectly and spoken on their behalf. This article, with its religious context and publication in a rather unknown journal, still carries a lot of significance when trying to dissect broader themes of the early abolitionist movement(s).

Every American ought to feel that slavery is the opprobrium of the name of liberty.

The right of personal liberty, therefore, is not one which may be lawfully vindicated at all hazards.

People-of-ColourDownload

Sonthonax Abolition of Slavery (1794)

1700-1830s, Consciousness Raising, Date, Privatization, Self Institution, Tactics of Disruption, The Workplace

On August 29, 1793, Léger-Félicité Sonthonax, civil commissioner of the northern part of the French colony Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti), issued a decree that formally abolished slavery forever in his region of the colony. This proclamation, which was seemingly the first of its kind, created a snowball effect that eventually led to the National Convention’s official Feb 4, 1794, decree abolishing slavery throughout all of the French colonies. Used initially as a tactic for securing the colony for French control in the face of British invasion and colony-wide slave revolt, Sonthonax can easily be credited with paving the way for early calls for the abolition of slavery, and was a primary initiator for the French being one of the first countries to formally abolish the institution of slavery throughout all of their provinces and colonies. What began as a “small” political action in the northern region of a colony with a very large slave population established one of the most disruptive chains of events for the abolition of the institution of slavery.

Haitian-Abolition-of-Slvery-1Download
Proclamation-Haiti-1794-(English-Translation)Download

“Ain’t I A Woman” (1851)

1840-1945, Black, Consciousness Raising, Date, Defining the Enemy, Subjectives of Refusal, Tactics of Disruption, White Supremacy, Women

Sojourner Truth was a prominent American abolitionist, speaking out primarily for African-American civil rights, women’s rights, and alcohol temperance. In this speech given at the Akron, Ohio, Women’s Convention in 1851, Truth was a pioneer in demonstrating the dual burden Black women faced. Seeing as this demographic was facing both deep-rooted racism and sexism, she, in this speech, attempts to describe the potential for disruption that these women had. It was also very important to Truth to legitimize the rights of Black women. She describes how, at this dawn of women’s rights activism, White women were given more legitimacy in the eyes of men, but Truth is disrupting preconceived conventions by asking, “And ain’t I a woman?” While in this era of abolitionism, we primarily focus on the civil rights of the enslaved, we regularly forget that in this period, early calls for the equal rights of women were beginning to emerge. Truth, makes sure that we don’t forget the demographic that was affected by both of these movements, Black women.

Aint-I-a-Woman-1Download

The Liberator’s Salutation (1831)

1700-1830s, Black, Consciousness Raising, Date, Strike, Subjectives of Refusal, Tactics of Disruption

The Liberator served as one of the most disruptive calls for abolition that existed in the Civil War era. In circulation from January 1831 to December 1865, this newspaper was primarily published by William Lloyd Garrison, and in this “Salutation” that was issued in the first print, we can see the primary purpose for the paper, and the radical, disruptive measures it was looking to make in order to abolish slavery. Using incredibly provocative language, Garrison, with this “Salutation,” was successful in his continuous call(s) to action. Newspapers, such as the Liberator, were extremely effective forms of disruption in the way(s) that they were able to spread awareness and validation for the ever increasing abolishtionist movement.

My name is “LIBERATOR!” I propose
To hurl my shafts at freedom’s deadliest foes!
My task is hard—for I am charged to save
Man from his brother!—to redeem the slave! 

Liberator-vol.-1-issue-1-SalutationDownload

Our Countrymen in Chains (1841)

1840-1945, Black, Colonized, Consciousness Raising, Date, Subjectives of Refusal, Tactics of Disruption

With the use of publications such as the Mirror of Liberty, authors such as John G. Whittier were able to advance their radical abolitionist agenda. In this poem, titled Our Countrymen in Chains, Whittier used abrasive language and vivid verbal imagery to attempt to describe the plight of the enslaved man. Often coupled with this work is the “Am I Not a Man and a Brother?” image (as it is here) and is truly an example of disruptive moral propaganda. While many works such as this were designed to incite direct violent action against the supporters of the slave industry, Whittier decides to make the ever-difficult appeal of emotion to stir disruptive tendencies. His call to “scatter the living coals of truth” throughout the heart of the nation offers the clearest insight into his disruptive agenda.

And shall we scoff at Europe’s kings, when Freedom’s fire is dim with us, and round our country’s altar clings the damning shade of Slavery’s curse?

John_Greenleaf_Whittier_Our_Fellow_Countrymen_in_ChainsDownload

David Walker’s “Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World” (1829)

1700-1830s, Black, Defining the Enemy, Subjectives of Refusal, Uncategorized, White Supremacy

David Walker was born a free man in North Carolina on September 28, 1976. He later moved to Boston, where he began writing for the nation’s first African American newspaper. In 1829, while working with this newspaper, he published this Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World. This appeal was a collection of essays that focused on appealing to the nation’s civic duty, what he believed was an inherent sense of Christianity, and finally, a sense of early black nationalism. While this pamphlet has a unique take on disruption for its use of Christian morals as a call to action, it was effective in its coupling with calls for radical abolitionism and critiques of the founding tenets and members of our nation, such as Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence.

The whites have always been an unjust, jealous, unmerciful, avaricious and blood-thirsty set of beings, always seeking after power and authority.

walkersappealinf1829walk_bw-1Download