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E-book
Author Weiner, Dana Elizabeth, author

Title Race and rights : fighting slavery and prejudice in the Old Northwest, 1830-1870 / Dana Elizabeth Weiner
Published DeKalb, Illinois : NIU Press, 2013
©2013

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Description 1 online resource (341 pages)
Series Early American places
Contents Acknowledgments; Introduction; 1 / Activist Taproots: Place, Reform, and the Quest for Unity; 2 / Scrubbing at the "Bloody Stain of Oppression":A Human Rights Movement against Unjust Laws, 1830-1849; 3 / "Stand Firm on the Platform of Truth": Freedom of Assembly and Local Antislavery Organizations in the Old Northwest; 4 / "The Palladium of Our Liberties": Freedom of the Press in the Old Northwest, 1837-1848; 5 / "An Odd Place for Navigation": Itinerant Lecturers and Freedom of Speech,1830-1849; 6 / Itinerant Lecturers in a Fracturing Nation, 1850-1861
7 / The Potential for Radical Change: The Turbulent 1850s, the Civil War, and Resilient RacismConclusion; Appendix: Old Northwest Population Statistics, 1800-1870; Notes; Bibliography; Index
Summary In the Old Northwest from 1830 to 1870, a bold set of activists battled slavery and racial prejudice. This book is about their expansive efforts to eradicate southern slavery and its local influence in the contentious milieu of four new states carved out of the Northwest Territory: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio. While the Northwest Ordinance outlawed slavery in the region in 1787, in reality both it and racism continued to exert strong influence in the Old Northwest, as seen in the race-based limitations of civil liberties there. Indeed, these states comprised the central battleground over race and rights in antebellum America, in a time when race's social meaning was deeply infused into all aspects of Americans' lives, and when people struggled to establish political consensus. Antislavery and anti-prejudice activists from a range of institutional bases crossed racial lines as they battled to expand African American rights in this region. Whether they were antislavery lecturers, journalists, or African American leaders of the Black Convention Movement, women or men, they formed associations, wrote publicly to denounce their local racial climate, and gave controversial lectures. In the process, they discovered that they had to fight for their own right to advocate for others. This bracing new history by Dana Elizabeth Weiner is thus not only a history of activism, but also a history of how Old Northwest reformers understood the law and shaped new conceptions of justice and civil liberties. The newest addition to the Mellon-sponsored Early American Places Series, Race and Rights will be a much-welcomed contribution to the study of race and social activism in nineteenth-century America
Analysis antislavery, Black Convention Movement, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Northwest Territory, Northwest Ordinance, Early America
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Print version record
Subject Antislavery movements -- Northwest, Old -- History -- 19th century
African Americans -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- Northwest, Old -- History -- 19th century
African Americans -- Northwest, Old -- Social conditions -- 19th century
Race discrimination -- Law and legislation -- Northwest, Old -- History -- 19th century
African Americans -- Legal status, laws, etc.
African Americans -- Social conditions
Antislavery movements
Race discrimination -- Law and legislation
Race relations
SUBJECT Northwest, Old -- Race relations -- History -- 19th century
Subject United States -- Old Northwest
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9781609090722
1609090721