Richard Allen, Absalom Jones, and the Early Black Church

In April 1787, Rev. Richard Allen and Rev. Absalom Jones co-founded the Free African Society (FAS) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As two of the earliest African Americans to become ordained Christian priests, Allen and Jones sought to create a kind of community outreach organization with the FAS. It helped black Philadelphians satisfy some of their basic ...

Samuel Cornish, John Russwurm, and the Early Black Press

In March 1827, Rev. Samuel Cornish and John Russwurm co-founded Freedom’s Journal in New York City. It served as the first African-American newspaper in the United States and commemorated the 50th anniversary-year of the first American anti-slavery statutes in the 1777 Vermont Constitution. One of their primary objectives in starting Freedom’s Journal was to combat ...

A Story You Probably Didn’t Know about John Brown’s Body, Douglass, Emerson, and Thoreau

Today we present a story in two parts, part of which you probably already know and part of which you probably didn't know before.  PART I is a summary of the story of John Brown, Harper's Ferry, and American Anti-Slavery from AAS volunteer Colin Fitzgerald: For three days in October 1859, radical abolitionist John Brown conducted ...

On the Poetry of Phillis Wheatley

With the publication of Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (London, 1773) [AAS online catalog record], Phillis Wheatley became the first published African American poet. Because of her status as a house slave in Boston, Massachusetts, she achieved high literary recognition in the years following publication. Prominent political figures like George Washington and Thomas ...