Black History Facts I Bet You Didn't Know!!

Who Were the First Whites to Come Out Against Slavery in America?

On this day in 1688, the very first formal protest against slavery came from a group one would rarely think of as being any type of activist or abolitionist organization; it was the Quakers!

Yes, the Quakers, the Religious Society of Friends, were the first to officially, as an organization, denounce slavery and the slave trade. Or to use their words, "the traffick of mens-body". (Quaker Roots, 2006)

Four men signed the original petition and presented it to the Monthly Meeting of the Friends in Germantown, PA. Here is a portion of that petition (the misspellings are the original English spellings of words, or the writers' own misspellings) :

"These are the reasons why we are against the traffick of men-body, as followeth…There is a saying, that we shall doe to all men like as we will be done ourselves; making no difference of what generation, descent or colour they are. And those who steal or robb men, and those who buy or purchase them, are they not all alike? Here is liberty of conscience, wch is right and reasonable; here ought to be likewise liberty of ye body, except of evil-doers, wch is an other case. But to bring men hither, or to rob and sell them against their will, we stand against…Ah! Doe consider well this thing, you who doe it, if you would be done at this manner? And if it is done according to Christianity?…Pray, what thing in the world can be done worse towards us, than if men should rob or steal us away, and sell us for slaves to strange countries; separating housbands from their wives and children. Being now this is not done in the manner we would be done at therefore we contradict and are against this traffic of men-body. And we who profess that it is not lawful to steal, must, likewise, avoid to purchase such things as are stolen, but rather help to stop this robbing and stealing if possible." (Quaker Roots, 2006)

The petition was passed on to the Quarterly and Yearly Meetings. Although it did not result in a sudden dramatic shift in owning slaves among Quakers, the 'Germantown Protest' did however start a ball rolling, which ended in 1776 with virtually all Quakers in the Philadelphia area refusing to own slaves.(Quaker Roots, 2006)

The Germantown Protest, the first formal protest by an organized white body in English America, made by the Religious Society of Friends, the Quakers, February 18, 1688. (BlackFacts.com, 1997)


Thanks to "kleinefische" for her wonderful work on the blog Quaker Roots - I know I learned a lot!

References:

First Formal Protest Against Slavery. (1997). Retrieved February 18, 2014, from Blackfacts.com: http://www.blackfacts.com/fact/aa3465fc-750f-4787-baac-1db1c6172a95

kleinefische. (2006, November 18). Quaker Roots. Retrieved February 18, 2014, from QuakerRoots.blogspot.com: http://quakerroots.blogspot.com/

A New Feature: Black History Facts I Bet You Didn't Know!

Some Famous Birthdays Today

     I am a regular listener of the Tom Joyner Morning Show on WMMJ 102.3 (Not sure why I plugged them, but what the hay, they’re a cool station and they play a lot of stuff from my era!), and that’s where I got the idea to do a regular feature on my blog, The  'Black History Facts I Bet You Didn't Know’.  (The TJMS calls it "Little-known Black History Facts" but I don't want to get sued!!) This is supposedly “black history month” (what happens to our history the rest of the year?) but I don’t feel that the month of February (who chose the shortest month of the year anyway?) is anywhere near long enough to begin to teach our long and rich history. So, I'm going to be like Tom Joyner and McDonald’s, I'm going to honor Black History All Year Round!

This is the day that is observed as 'President's Day' in most areas of the country. However, the Presidents aren't the only reason today should be marked!

Two very famous black people have birthdays on this day, albeit 145 years apart. 

1. Born on February 17, 1818 was Frederick Douglass (1818-95). He was a prominent American abolitionist, author and orator. Born a slave, Douglass escaped at age 20 and went on to become a world-renowned anti-slavery activist.

An abolitionist, writer and orator Frederick Douglass was the most important black American leader of the nineteenth century. Born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, he was the son of a slave woman and, probably, her white master. Upon his escape from slavery at age twenty, he adopted the name of the hero of Sir Walter Scott’s The Lady of the Lake. Douglass immortalized his years as a slave in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845). This and two subsequent autobiographies, My Bondage and My Freedom (1855) and The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881), mark his greatest contributions to American culture. Written as antislavery propaganda and personal revelation, they are regarded as the finest examples of the slave narrative tradition and as classics of American autobiography. (Staff, 2009)

 

2. Also born on this day (but in 1963) was a superstar; basketball superstar Michael Jordan. Michael Jeffrey Jordan, also known by his initials, MJ, is an American former professional basketball player, entrepreneur, and majority owner and chairman of the Charlotte Bobcats. 

His biography on the National Basketball Association (NBA) website states, “By acclamation, Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time.” Jordan was one of the most effectively marketed athletes of his generation and was considered instrumental in popularizing the NBA around the world in the 1980s and 1990s. (Wikipedia, 2013)

 

Staff, H. (2009). Frederick Douglass. Retrieved February 17, 2014, from History.com.

Wikipedia. (2013). Michael Jordan. Retrieved February 17, 2014, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Jordan