Abolitionist Biographies

…ent, clever and pious.” Freeman attended the Oneida Institute with New York abolitionist Alexander Crummell and began his career as pastor of Abyssinian Congregational Church in Portland, Maine. In 1852, Freeman moved to Brooklyn, where he succeeded James N. Gloucester as pastor at Siloam Presbyterian Church. His tenure there lasted more than thirty years. established a flourishing Sabbath school at the church. In the 1860s, he led the African Ci…

Crisis Decade (1850 – 1860)

…Judges received financial incentives for ruling in favor of slaveholders. And people assisting fugitives could be fined or imprisoned. The pamphlet, issued by the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society led by Lewis Tappan, sold 13,000 copies within three weeks of its first printing. Plymouth Church 1850. 1850. Brooklyn photograph and illustration collection. V1973.6.115. Brooklyn Historical Society. Church Debates on the Fugitive Slave Law “T…

A Gradual Emancipation (1783 – 1827)

…treet African Methodist Church]. Eugene L. Armbruster. 1923. Eugene L. Armbruster photographs and scrapbooks. V1974.1.1342. Brooklyn Historical Society. Teacher’s Manual Section 1: Lesson 6 Bridge Street AWME Church, Brooklyn’s oldest black church now located in Bedford-Stuyvesant, was founded by grassroots anti-slavery activists as a political base during gradual emancipation. In 1816, Reverend Richard Allen founded the independent African Metho…