The Colored Regulars in the United States Army by T. G. Steward
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page 37 of 387 (09%)
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enfranchisement and political elevation of the free blacks. This work
had reached its highest form in the Anglo-African, as that epoch of our national history came to its close in the slave-holders' war. The titles of the newspapers indicate the opening and continuance of a period of anti-slavery agitation. Their columns were filled with arguments and appeals furnished by men who gave their whole souls to the work. It was a period of great mental activity on the part of the free colored people. They were discussing all probable methods of bettering their condition. It was the period that produced both writers and orators. In 1830 the first convention called by colored men to consider the general condition of the race and devise means to improve that condition, met in the city of Philadelphia. The history of this convention is so important that I append a full account of it as published in the Anglo-African nearly thirty years after the convention met. It was called through the efforts of Hezekiah Grice, of Baltimore, who afterwards emigrated to Hayti, and for many years followed there the occupation of carver and gilder and finally became Director of Public Works of the city of Port-au-Prince. While visiting that city years ago, I met a descendant of Mr. Grice, a lady of great personal beauty, charming manners, accomplished in the French language, but incapable of conversing at all in English. The conventions, begun in 1830, continued to be held annually for a brief period, and then dropped into occasional and special gatherings. They did much good in the way of giving prominence to the colored orators and in stemming the tide of hostile sentiment by appealing to the country at large in language that reached many hearts. The physical condition, so far as the health and strength of the free |
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