Library Copy Review: Subversives: Antislavery Community in Washington, D.C., 1828-1865, By Stanley C. Harrold

 Noting that the DCPL did not have a copy of this book, but I was able to read it at the Library of Congress -thank you to our public libraries!

This is an Excellent and extensive work documenting cooperation in DC.   Read for my book: Stayed on Freedom’s Call.

StayedOnFreedomsCallGoodReads

Particularly:

Free Negroes in the District of Columbia, 1790-1846 [WorldCat.org]

quoting Cook’s need “to be very particular to do nothing knowingly, that would in the least tend to disturb the public weal…” P. 41 of Harrold, Subversives, 2003

and
“best known” Israel Bethel (split from white Ebenezer, 4th st.) minister. Mentioned with Mt. Zion Negro Church, 1814 in Georgetown (earliest Black church in DC) contrasted with cut ties to mother denomination. Praised with Wesleyan Metropolitan AME Zion church aka African Wesleyan Society on D St, (S.E?) split under Abraham Cole. Began welcoming white abolitionists to their churches -P. 41, No Segregated Seating!!

and

American slavery, 1619-1877 (Libro, 1993) [WorldCat dot org] worldcat dot org
Harrold (in “Subversives” LSU, 2003) uses Kolchin to claim that most Whites saw Black ppl as needing slavery to control..

found this related info. in the bibliography of “Snow-storm in August : Washington City, Francis Scott Key, and the forgotten race riot of 1835″, p. 4   (I will post an article combing the three reviews I’ve somehow managed to write but not post as proper blog articles…)

Congressional spitting/coarse lang. <-slave-owners; Slave despair & falling =slavery vulnerable in DC. Defense of slaves in DC <->legitimate institutution. P.6: 1850 GA secede if DC slavery abol. MD manumissions <-$ ->darker skinned free ppl, seen as more threat than mulatos. P. 16 Judge Cranch, 1821 ruled William Coston grandfathered out of new $20 free Black good behaviour bond. Black-White Cooperation: Quakers Tyson (est. school) & Lundy (pub. Genius of Univ. Emancip.). Mary Billings, George Drinker & Joshua Leavitt (1834 slave pen tour), Charles Torrey & Elisha Tyson (1840s), John Needle & William Chaplin (1850), M. Miner & (Gtown) Maria Becraft. Snow, Cook, Bradley. 1836 Gag Rule. J.Q.Adams, Gates, Giddings, Leavitt & Weld, Child & Torrey. P. 37: Geog. vs. Relational Community
ShiraDestinie

This work needs to be resurrected from the forgotten oblivion to which our society has consigned it.

Please, please, please, read this book, which I was fortunate enough to be a District resident when I needed to read it, as DCPL did not have it, but the Library of Congress did.  Sitting in the Jefferson Reading Room to take notes was amazing, given the size and history of that room, which is more the size of a lecture hall.

   Continuing Education is crucial to our republic, and to our future.  Reading and critical thinking on the work like this is crucial to how we vote, as well, in the immediate term.  Over the long term, empathy, built through tools like free adult education, probono legal aid, and language learning, is crucial.

We really can Do Better.

Shira

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Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

Shira

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