The American Revolution was a transformative moment in African American history, a war for freedom second only to the Civil War in significance.

African Americans threw themselves into the war effort with more enthusiasm and with more at stake than did many white colonists.  The chaos of the war itself brought many enslaved men new opportunities for independence as the British army promised freedom to those who might be willing to desert their rebel masters and join the king’s regiments. 

But after the British surrendered and evacuated, Black fortunes would diverge dramatically. In the North, the patriots’ victory spurred the rise of the anti-slavery movement, but in the South, that same great victory helped entrench plantation slavery for generations to come.

In an engrossing and enlightening seminar, historian Richard Bell of the University of Maryland explores the American Revolution from the unfamiliar perspective of enslaved and free African Americans.

10–11:05 a.m.  Declaring Independence

Over eight long years of war, both the Continental and British armies appealed to Black Americans for manpower. How African Americans responded to the call to arms and the chaos of war reveals their own declarations of independence.

11:20 a.m.–12:30 p.m.  Claiming Legal Freedom

After the war, most Northern states moved to abolish slavery. Similar proposals in the South faltered and failed. Enslaved people there took matters into their own hands and seized freedom for themselves.

12:30–1:30 p.m.  Break

1:30 to 2:35 p.m.  The Constitution’s Counter-revolution

Bell examines the work done by the 1787 Constitution to repair the damage to the slave system wrought during the Revolutionary War. While the Constitution never used the word “slave,” it created a political system that protected and empowered enslavers.

2:50–4 p.m.  The Black Founders

The struggles of Richard Allen and other first-generation free Black leaders in northern cities as they built robust communities of faith and fellowship that could extend and expand the anti-racist fight beyond the legal end of slavery in the North.

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