Colored Conventions Movement

The Colored Conventions Movement was a series of national, regional, and state conventions held irregularly during the decades preceding and following the American Civil War. The delegates who attended these conventions consisted of both free and fugitive African American community and religious leaders, businessmen, politicians, writers, publishers, and abolitionists. The minutes from these conventions show that Antebellum African-Americans sought justice beyond the emancipation of their enslaved countrymen: they also organized to discuss issues concerning labor, healthcare, temperance and educational equality. Although the conventions largely subsided following the Civil War, the Colored Conventions of antebellum America are seen as the precursors to larger African American organizations, including the Colored National Labor Union and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

In the early 19th century in the United States, national and local conventions involving a variety of political and social issues were pursued by increasing numbers of Americans. In 1830 and 1831, political parties held their first national nominating conventions. Historian Howard H. Bell notes that the convention movement grew out of a trend toward greater self-expression among African-Americans and was largely fostered by the appearance of newspapers such as Freedom's Journal. The first documented convention was held at Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church in Philadelphia in September 1830. Delegates to this convention discussed the prospect of emigrating to Canada to find refuge from the harsh fugitive slave laws and violent oppression under which they lived in the United States. The first convention elected as president Richard Allen, founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), the first independent black denomination in the United States. The idea of buying land in Canada quickly gave way to addressing problems they faced at home, such as education and labor rights.

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