On this day in Labor History the year was 1830.
That was the day that the Reverend Richard Allen brought black leaders together at his Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church in Philadelphia.
They met to discuss the rising white racial violence and discrimination toward free black residents of northern cities.
Forty people answered Allen’s call, representing seven states.
The delegates included many of the leading black ministers and abolitionists of the day.
Those who attended risked personal harm as white mobs threatened the delegates.
Due to the danger, the group met in secret starting on September 15th.
Then on this day they began open sessions.
For five days the delegates considered multiple responses to the conditions black northerners faced.
They founded the “American Society for Free Persons of Colour for Improving their Condition in the United States: For Purchasing Lands: and for Establishment of a Settlement in the Province of Canada.”
The organization emphasized pushing for legal protections for black residents in the United States.
They focused on education as a means of uplifting and improving the lives of black citizens.
But delegates also supported the idea of an outlet to Canada for those black families who wanted to leave for their safety.
The national Convention reconvened several times over the next three decades.
Multiple meetings were held at the state and local levels.
These meetings gave black leaders a chance to devise coordinated strategies to stand up against the increasing violence and restrictive laws of the North, and to call for the end of slavery in the South.
One outcome of these meetings was the founding of labor schools to train black students in the skilled trades, as means to gain economic independence.
February 27 - The 1937 Woolworth Sit-Down
February 26 - The Battle at Bethlehem
February 25 - The Paterson Silk Strike Begins
February 24 - Muller v Oregon Decided
February 23 - Black Workers Lead Historic Strike at UNC
February 22 - Labelling Teachers as Terrorists
February 21 - The First Female Telephone Operator
February 20 - Angelina Grimke is Born
February 19 - Philly Street Car Workers Spark General Strike
February 18 - Anti-Slavery Begins in America
February 17 - Standing Up By Sitting Down
February 16 - The Wisconsin Uprising Begins
February 15 - The Uprising of the 20,000 Comes to a Close
February 14 - Kansas City Laundresses Walk Off the Job
February 13 - Martial Law Declared to Crush the UAW
February 12 - The NAACP is Founded
February 11 - Cutting Corners on Safety at Sequoyah I
February 10 - Forty-Three Workers Buried Alive
February 9 - Organizing Bloody Harlan
February 8 - Butte Copper Miners Join the 1919 Strike Wave
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