Importance of the Address of the Equal Rights League,1866

Note:  this is in a series of essays that I will be using to form the written version of the Tales.  Some are ideas and themes I am exploring -- others may be rough drafts of portions of the Tales.  --Ann McColl

Peaceably organizing to assert equal rights – including for education – is a revered tradition in this country.   And yet, any particular effort at organizing may be viewed at the time with suspicion and fear so that it is also a tradition to fear bait – to make those seeking change seem different from the mainstream, to cast doubt on their motives and methods, and to incite fear in others of the change. 

This was certainly true when blacks began to organize after the Civil War in North Carolina.  At the 1865 Freedmen’s Convention, blacks across the state agreed to form an Equal Rights League.  Blacks then created local associations to hold meetings, marches, and parades and to pass resolutions seeking equal rights and protection under the law.  Wilmington – the largest city in the state at the time – had such a local organization.  In January of 1866, James Harris, a leader from the Freedmen’s convention, came from Raleigh to speak to blacks in Wilmington.  It appears that about the same time, the League issued an address to the citizens of Wilmington.  You can read a copy of this address by clicking here.  (Please do so – the rest of this blog can wait!)

This address captures the nature of the League as well as its opposition.   We can use it as a window into the growing tension over changes in the social order.  The address begins by noting its opposition: 

“As the objects of this League have been misrepresented as well as misunderstood, and as the League as been the occasion of much unjust suspicion and anxious fear, we desire to make know its real object and purpose.  We do this with pleasure.  Our object is a public one.  We invite, therefore, public scrutiny.”

They are clear on their purpose to remove inequality in the law and that they would denounce a man who urged insurrection.  They go on to state:

“If we wish property, we mean to save it by honest labor.  If we aspire to positions of trust and honor, we mean to merit them by our intelligence and virtue.  If we ask for citizenship, we mean to show, through our respect of persons and property, and by our reverence for law and order, that we are worthy to be taken into the great company of American citizens.”

And what is the rest of the story?  These local associations continue to meet. They elect delegates to the state convention of the Equal Rights League to be held in October, 1866, at the Saint Paul AME Church in downtown Raleigh.  James Harris presides as president of the Equal Rights League.  At this meeting, the organization continues to press for political rights and opportunities for education.  They also form the Educational Association of the Colored People of North Carolina.  A year later, Harris, now a legislator, persuades the General Assembly to pass legislation incorporating the Equal Rights League so that it is a legally recognized institution. 

It is no coincidence that in this time of organizing for political rights, the Ku Klux Klan becomes active in North Carolina, committing the most violence between 1867 and 1870.  And once again, it is James Harris, who delivers a speech to the North Carolina House of Representatives on January 7, 1870, denouncing the crimes committed by the KKK against blacks and their supporters. He cites specific incidents that occurred in Chatham, Forsyth, Iredell, and Johnston counties with the most detailed and numerous crimes in Orange County.

But let’s return to the address to the citizens of Wilmington.  What do we gain from examining this address in its historical context?  It is for each of us to decide.  I would argue that this one-page address is clear, eloquent, and powerful:  it is a model for how to state a position well.  It is also a story in which one figure – James Harris – continuously appears as a leader who is willing to speak his convictions. And it is a story of the role of local organizations and the courage of people to form associations even in the midst of fear and violence. To make this relevant to our times, these assertions lead to more questions. Who are the James Harris’s of our times?  What can grassroots organizations learn from the courage and strength of these local associations?  How can we best respond to intentional efforts to incite fear?  These questions I will leave unanswered but would be interested in your thoughts.

Primary Sources:

Address: The Members of the Equal Rights League of Wilmington, N.C. to the Citizens of Wilmington and Vicinity, American Missionary Association Archives, Amistad Research Center at Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana, North Carolina # 100288.  (Note:  undated; however   documents are numbered chronologically and documents before and after it are dated January, 1866.)  

Wilmington Herald, January 18, 1866 p. 1.

            Hon. James H. Harris on the Militia Bill, delivered in the NC House of Representatives Monday, January 7, 1870, Library of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina Collection (Cp970.82, H318).

Secondary Sources:

Alexander, Roberta Sue, North Carolina Faces the Freedmen (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press 1985).

Crow, Jeffrey J., Escott, Paul D., & Hatley, Flora J., A History of African Americans in North Carolina (Raleigh, N.C.: N.C. Department of Cultural Resources, Division of Archives and History 1992).