Seven Negroes took part in the first, meeting of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society, held at Harrisburg in January 1837. As might be expected, this roster included Forten, Purvis, and McCrummell; their associates were John C. Bowers and Presbyterian pastor Charles W. Gardner, both of Philadelphia, John Peck, a barber-shop owner in Carlisle, and Stephen Smith of East Fallowfield. Smith's partner in a lucrative lumber business, William Whipper, sent word from Columbia expressing regret for his absence. As usual, Negroes were moved by the experience: "I never spent a more agreeable time in my life," wrote Bowers. The high spirits of these pioneers must have been matched by those of clergyman Jehiel C. Beman when, a year later, he organized a white anti- slavery society at Glastonburg, Connecticut. In the summer of 1838 two branches were organized in Maine immediately fol- lowing a visit by Charles Lenox Remond, then a traveling agent for the parent body.
The new abolitionism was characterized by the organization of women's auxiliaries, and in this effort too Negroes took part. Women had attended the organizational meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society in Philadelphia, where they had been urged to form their own auxiliaries. They had not been invited to sign the Declaration of Sentiments or to join the society. But even to invite them to become abolitionists was somewhat in advance of the times. Public opinion held that reformist activity was defeminizing and that a woman re- former had somehow unsexed herself. The shout, "Go home and spin," often greeted a woman on the public platform. But the spinning wheel was being replaced, giving women time for something other than household work.
With the coming of the abolition movement many budding women's righters found an outlet for their energies. Hence the invitation from the new national organization was quickly seized upon. On December 14, 1833, the Female Anti-Slavery Society of Philadelphia had its birth, with Lucretia Mott its guiding spirit. Mrs. Mott later recalled that at the opening meeting the women, lacking experience in parliamentary procedures, had called upon James McCrummell for assistance. The best known of the four Negro signers of the society's charter was Sarah M. Douglass, the Quaker principal of the preparatory department of the Institute for Colored Youth, where she doubled as teacher of reading. The other three Negroes were sisters—Harriet Purvis, wife of Robert Purvis, Sarah Forten, and Margaretta Forten, the last chosen by the society as recording secretary. Seven days earlier the sisters had received a moving tribute in poetry, "To the Daughters of James Forten," from John Greenleaf Whittier, as color blind in looking at a person as in peering at a painting.
Founded also in 1833, indeed antedating the Philadelphia society by two months, was the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society. One of its five counsellors was young Susan Paul, whose brother Thomas was an apprentice in the Liberator office, and later a graduate of Dartmouth. At the annual fairs, a money-raising scheme originated by the Boston women, Miss Paul invariably superintended one of the tables.
Early in 1837 the Boston society initiated an exchange of letters with kindred organizations, a step which led to the First Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women. Gathering in New York in May from ten states were more than one hundred delegates, among them Sarah M. Douglass and Sarah Forten. Two particular friends of Miss Douglass were present, Sarah M. Grimke and Angelina E. Grimke. Carolinaborn aristocrats turned Quakers, Sarah and Angelina left Charleston in the late 1820's to come north and bear witness against slavery and for woman's rights. At the convention each of the sisters delivered a strong address, both published by vote of the delegates—Sarah's Address to Free Colored Americans, and Angelina's Appeal to the Women of the Nominally Free States. The convention also issued a circular bearing a poem by Sarah Forten calling upon women to abandon race prejudice.
American Abolitionists: Black Struggle for Equality
