Henry Highland Garnet: “An Address to the Slaves of the United States of America” (1843)
Henry Highland Garnet’s “Address to the Slaves of the United States of America” was delivered at the National Convention of Colored Citizens in Buffalo, New York, on August 16, 1843. A former slave, Garnet was pastor of the African American Liberty Street Presbyterian Church in Troy, New York, and editor of The Clarion, a weekly newspaper that published abolitionist and church-related articles. At age twenty-eight, he was a rising figure among young African American abolitionists, who were increasingly at odds with William Lloyd Garrison and the American Anti-Slavery Society. Garrison and his followers (both white and African American) had essentially abandoned politics in favor of nonviolent moral suasion in their fight against slavery. Garnet first signaled his disaffection with Garrison’s position in 1840 as one of the founding members of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, which advocated political action as the primary way to achieve emancipation. His...
