{"id":51585,"date":"2017-02-19T02:06:30","date_gmt":"2017-02-19T02:06:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=51585"},"modified":"2017-02-19T02:06:30","modified_gmt":"2017-02-19T02:06:30","slug":"x-making-america-white-200-years-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=51585","title":{"rendered":"@X: Making America White 200 Years Ago"},"content":{"rendered":"

@X: Making America White 200 Years Ago<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Public Books<\/a>
\n2017-02-17<\/p>\n

Brandon R. Byrd<\/strong><\/a>, Assistant Professor of History
\nVanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

In the latest edition of our anniversaries series, Brandon Byrd examines resistance to the American Colonization Society\u2019s<\/a> attempts to remove free blacks from the US.<\/em><\/p>\n

In January 1817, more than three thousand African Americans gathered in Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal<\/a> (AME) Church in Philadelphia, PA<\/a>. Skilled artisans, domestic workers, and underpaid manual laborers filled the pews. So did black elites including Richard Allen<\/a>, the founder and first bishop of the AME Church<\/a>; Absalom Jones<\/a>, Allen\u2019s friend and cofounder of the Free African Society<\/a>, the leading black mutual aid society in Philadelphia; and James Forten<\/a>, a wealthy sailmaker<\/a> and outspoken abolitionist. As historian Benjamin Quarles<\/a> noted, there was only one cause that could bring together a gathering of that size and diversity. Weeks earlier, some of the most influential white men in the United States had formed the American Colonization Society<\/a> (ACS), an organization whose official title\u2014the Society for the Colonization of Free People of Color of America\u2014made clearer its goal of removing free blacks from the United States. Now, as the ACS began its work, black Philadelphians gathered to respond as one to the proposition that their futures lay not in what was for many their country of birth but in Africa.<\/p>\n

Standing behind a platform at the front of the church, Forten brought the meeting to order. The well-to-do businessman, born free in Philadelphia, first called for all in favor of colonization to respond with an \u201caye.\u201d Nobody said a word. He then asked for those who opposed colonization to respond with a \u201cno.\u201d The response was thunderous. Unambiguous. Unanimous. In fact, Forten later wrote that it seemed as if the outcry \u201cwould bring down the walls of the building.\u201d1<\/sup><\/p>\n

One year later, the ACS gathered in the chamber of the US House of Representatives<\/a> for its first annual meeting. Participating members included Francis Scott Key<\/a>, the slaveholding author of what became known as \u201cThe Star-Spangled Banner<\/a>\u201d and a prominent Washington, DC<\/a>\u2013based attorney who later demanded in court that his fellow white men not \u201cabandon your country; to permit it to be taken from you by the Abolitionist, according to whose taste it is to associate and amalgamate with the Negro.\u201d2<\/sup> Henry Clay<\/a> was there too. The US congressman who would bring about the Missouri Compromise<\/a> was also a Kentucky<\/a> slaveowner who believed that \u201camalgamation<\/a>\u201d\u2014interracial socializing or sex\u2014was \u201cimpossible\u201d because the \u201cGod of nature by the difference of color & of physical constitution, has decreed against it.\u201d3<\/sup> He was, put simply, a man who admired the racial thought of Thomas Jefferson<\/a>, the exalted Founding Father<\/a> whose antislavery views coexisted with his slaveholding and his \u201csuspicion . . . that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind.\u201d He, too, wanted them<\/em> removed from his<\/em> country.4<\/sup>…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

@X: Making America White 200 Years Ago Public Books 2017-02-17 Brandon R. Byrd, Assistant Professor of History Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee In the latest edition of our anniversaries series, Brandon Byrd examines resistance to the American Colonization Society\u2019s attempts to remove free blacks from the US. In January 1817, more than three thousand African Americans […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,459,8,820,6940,20],"tags":[26233,26232,26235,26234,26236],"class_list":["post-51585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-history","category-media-archive","category-religion","category-slavery","category-usa","tag-african-methodist-episcopal","tag-american-colonization-society","tag-brandon-byrd","tag-brandon-r-byrd","tag-public-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51585"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51586,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51585\/revisions\/51586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}