federal career with the federal intelligence agency. but during that time, it was wonderful and i will never forget my dear old los alamos. >> if you like american history tv, keep up with us on facebook, twitter, and youtube. learn about what happened on this day in history and see preview clips of upcoming programs. follow us at c-span history. >> you are watching american history tv -- every weekend on c-span3, explore our nation's past. american history tv on c-span3. today, we are brought to you by these television companies who provide american history tv to viewers as a public service. >> paul polgar talks about his book, "standard bearers of

equality" and argues the early black-and-white activists sought to end racial inequality and contrasts their goals with the antebellum antislavery movement. the nantucket historical association hosted this event and provided the video. amelia: my name is amelia holmes and i'm excited to introduce you to our speaker. paul polgar is a professor at the university of mississippi where he researches and teaches on slavery, racism and emancipation in the broader atlantic world. his first book was published in 2019 by the university of north carolina press. he is now at work on two projects, including a collection of essays that will re-examine the emergence of racial slavery in the atlantic world and a second book project that will explain the emergence in the reconstruction era of a broad electoral coalition in support

of a path raking expansion of black political and civil rights. thank you for joining us tonight. if you have any questions, submit them for the queue and day after paul's presentation. over to you, paul. paul: thank you for inviting me and thank you for the nantucket association for hosting a. although i live in oxford, mississippi now where my job is, i was born and bred in boston, so it is nice to be in massachusetts briefly, if only virtually. i am going to open up a powerpoint to add some visuals here and what i am going to do is attempt to give a broad overview of this book project. it is hard to boil down to a 20 to 25 minute presentation. this is the product of some 10

years in research and writing and over a 300 page book. i'm going to lay out broadly what my book is attempting to do historically and an overall summary of its arguments and larger narrative. so first of all, what is the purpose of my book? what am i trying to accomplish? it is trying to showcase the history of abolitionism before 1830. most histories of abolitionism begin in 1830, maybe 1833 with the founding of the antislavery society and nantucket itself was very much involved with that movement. frederick douglass, william lloyd garrison as these famous historical actors. if you talk to someone, what were they taught in high school

or college, they will probably tell you abolitionism really began in the 1830's and the antebellum time. i am pushing back on that and telling a longer, broader history. one of the things i'm trying to do is show is strict -- issues of slavery, race, african-american rights, these were issues hotly debated among americans black-and-white all the way from the beginning of the nation's founding. they didn't start in the antebellum era. another thing i'm trying to do is flush out and recover what i name movement abolitionism or the first abolition movement as a movement in its own right. the historians before me had very effective arguments for the

different historical actors that make up the first abolition movement, actors i will talk about soon, but they had not chronicled the movement in its own right and that is a big part of what i am trying to do, to show that this movement was a movement, that it was a broad, cohesive vision for ending slavery and making african-americans citizens of the nation. one more thing i want to point out is to show a lot of the key attributes of the well-known and documented abolitionists and abolitionism of the 1830's, things like moral suasion, overcoming white prejudice, the cultivation of an anti-slavery public, biracial activism, the importance of black citizenship and equality before the law,

these are things we associate with antebellum -- antebellum activism like frederick douglass , but those themes informed the earlier abolition movement i'm chronicling here. just to capture the heart and embodiment of the movement, i want to show two different depictions of early abolitionism. one of them, many if not all of you are familiar with this symbol -- am i not a man, i am a brother became this icon from the 1780's through the 1840's and beyond. this was first created in 1787 in london and the sister society to one of the main abolition societies i cover, the pennsylvania abolition society

receive this emblem. they decided to in creating their own emblem for their society, revise it. and this is what they did. in the second image, they created their own vision of black freedom and it's very different. it shows this enslaved man on bended knee almost pleading for freedom. this second image, you have an african-american man who is literally breaking the chains of slavery, pleading freedom with his palm out stretched with a sense of confidence, joining hands with a white abolitionist, almost announcing to the united states a vision of a new nation which black people are included as citizens in which slavery ends and the emancipated become incorporated into the body politic.

this image asked to embody the spirit of first movement abolitionism that i chronicled in the book. i want to lay out the three goals i chronicle and the book and i will say a little about each of these goals. the first goal of movement abolitionists -- i'm talking broadly about a coalition of abolition societies such as the pennsylvania abolition society and the new york mission society along with their black allies within communities of color in cities like new york and philadelphia. i'm going to say more about the historical actors that made up this movement but broadly speaking, that is what i am referring to when i refer to first movement abolitionists. one of the three goals i'm going to mention for this movement in

enforcing and expanding northern emancipation statutes. slavery is put on the road to gradual extinction in the northern states between 1780 and 1804. the societies i focus on our focusing on enforcing and expanding emancipation statutes in new york and pennsylvania. these abolition societies respond to the calls for aid and health -- and help from the enslaved individuals and team up with these individuals to enforce and expand laws. because the laws went well beyond saying slavery is going to end after a certain date. there is this assortment of laws that opens avenues to a more immediate black freedom. i'm happy to talk about some of those in the queue and day but i

won't go into the details of those laws. but as legally enslaved people of color and the first movement abolition societies are teaming up, they are asserting the fundamental rights of people of color as right bearing citizens. they are bringing court cases, pushing back against the legal and stash the legal enslavement of these people and working to make emancipation a reality in the northern states. a second theme is the goal of incorporating black americans into the republic as citizens. this goal included a program of free black educational and socioeconomic aid with a goal of sculpting a virtuous free black citizen who could prove the capacity of black americans for

virtuous freedom. this program was a response to the defenders of slavery who, during this gradual emancipation time are arguing that formally enslaved people could never made virtuous citizens and their very freedom would threaten the fabric of the new nation. this idea that someone who was enslaved could never be virtuously free and if they are free, they will threaten the very fabric of society. and by the way, this defense of slavery, proslavery argument is trying to draw on the fears of the founding generation that that generation has about will this experiment in small are republican or representative government, will this endure? this program of the abolition society and free black allies

teaming up to emphasize black citizenship and incorporation is a response to those arguments of slavery defenders but it makes black citizenship and incorporation is essential to first movement abolitionism. one more thing that is important that i will mention is the goal of overturning or defeating white prejudice. first movement abolitionists believe racial prejudice bolstered slavery and racial inequality in the united states and these abolition societies as well as free black community leaders and pamphleteers, they put forth a public campaign of persuasion use let you -- utilizing the press and print culture to target the white public to overcome white prejudice and proof to the white

body politic that in fact there is an underlying equality of people of color and formerly enslaved people had an equal aptitude for freedom and they hoped this would tear down what they saw as a really important pillar of slavery and racial inequality and that was white prejudice and what would be increasingly referred to as racism. those are the themes and goals of the first movement abolitionists and abolitionism. now i want to talk more specifically about who made up this coalition. which historic actors are we talking about? the first group, one of them work quakers, the wrist -- the society of friends. they are very important. they are the first group who really worked against slavery

and by the time of the revolution, quakers increasingly say if you are part of religious society, you cannot own enslaved people and an anti-slavery movement goes up within the society of friends and a lot of the strategies i just mentioned that the first movement abolitionism implemented, quakers were a key part in that. they are key actors in the abolition society and their strategies and formed first movement abolitionism in a lot of ways. quakers are one group. another group represented by revolutionary vanguard public figures that you can see here -- one of them, benjamin rush who many of you have probably heard of, was a famous revolutionary era doctor and philosopher and

american patriot. he, along with other enlightenment-minded and reform figures of prominence are part of this coalition that included individuals from those who were not as involved like alexander hamilton, but nonetheless did lend their support to john jay, the first justice of the supreme court to daniel thompkins, the governor of new york. benjamin franklin is the first president of the pennsylvania abolition society. prominent figures who are part of this revolutionary political leap and see abolitionism as an important reform movement will sweep away the barbaric social practices of monarchy and prerevolutionary times. individuals like angela rush are important, these revolutionary

political elites are important figures in this coalition. another group, i feature four of these prominent individuals, are black community leaders in cities like new york and philadelphia. here, richard allen, the famed minister of the african methodist up a school church, absalom jones, also a minister in philadelphia, she williams junior, you can see the theme here that a lot of these leading figures were leading religious figures within black communities. james fortin of philadelphia who is a filmmaker and was one of the most economically and socially prominent free black men of the post revolutionary time. these men embodied the hope and optimism of these black

communities as they are emerging out of the revolution and into emancipation. they came up with the abolition society to create this goal of fostering virtuous free black communities by melting moral and religious practices as well as meeting other benchmarks of what were the model of being a virtuous citizen in the post revolutionary era and early american republic. we're talking roughly 1790 to 1820. these prominent free black leaders were a very important part of the coalition. one more group i will point to where historically marginalized people of color. the group of people i mentioned a little earlier in my talk, those individuals bringing these

cases of illegal enslavement to these abolition societies. these people, it is really hard to recapture their lives because we only have snippets of their lives from sources like this and those are the internal mean -- internal minutes or meeting recordings. this is from the pennsylvania abolition society and they are referring to a specific case. we only have the first name of this woman of color, mary, so these people's stories are hard to fully recapture in the same way you can recapture the lives of these more prominent african-american community leaders. nonetheless, these historically and economically marginalized people of color, men and women in cities like philadelphia and new york are nonetheless essential to the coalition because they are teaming up with

the abolition society to enforce emancipation laws on the ground. i have a chapter dedicated to telling their story and trying to recapture the partnership they form with the abolition society. what this disparate set of actors share is this sort of optimism in antislavery, this idea that the course of history and trajectory of the new nation was heading in a direction that was going to oppose slavery. they pointed to emancipation laws, the outlawing of the international slave trade of 1808, they pointed to the growing creation of free black communities. they pointed to many factors to say this movement is part of this optimistic take on the belief that slavery and racial

inequality are going to work through very hard activism. one more thing i want to mention about this movement before talking about its downfall and briefly mentioned and lay out its legacy, as i see it is to address why focus on the mid-atlantic region. i focus in the mid-atlantic region in new york and pennsylvania because as i have been alluding to, the two most prominent abolition societies, the pennsylvania abortion society in new york abolition society, in philadelphia and new york city, you had two of the most politically activist organized black communities in the new nation.

there were other ones as well, like in boston, so i'm not saying these were the only communities but these are a unique part of the country where you have the combination of the societies and communities coming together to create this biracial movement. now that i have laid out the movement and its goals, who was involved in the movement broadly, i want to talk about what happened to the movement. ultimately, and i lay this out broadly. a new movement emergence -- emerges, the american colonization society emerges in 1817. it is a very complex movement and organization but basically, i focus on the element of the colonization movement which

totally parts from first movement abolitionism. the colonization move -- the movement argues racism cannot be overcome. they premise their entire idea on -- emancipated slaves could be made free, virtuous citizens. those who argue that to end slavery, you have to repatriate the free outside the boundaries of the united states. as someone who subscribes to colonization, they argue white prejudice couldn't be overcome and therefore, they say permanent black degradation would follow african-american freedom as long as people of color remain in the united states once they gain their freedom.

it's a very different take on how to ultimately end slavery. they would say you have to basically recall and eyes those who are free. a total departure from first movement abolitionism and historians have not emphasized enough how much this was a departure because they have not unearthed and recovered first movement abolitionists in their agenda. colonization takes hold, and by the 1820's, and states like new york and pennsylvania, it has become successful among white activists. part of the reason this is the case is from this racially denigrating cartoon from philadelphia in 1830's, the racial climate, if you will of cities like philadelphia and new york have just worsened for a host of reasons that i'm happy to talk about in the queue and day. generally, white hostilities had

increased by the 1820's. increasingly, the optimism about slavery and ending it becomes less convincing among many abolitionists, particularly white abolitionists and antislavery activist because colonization is going to divide white and black activists. colonization divides from the first movement abolitionists, the first abolitionist movement to this societies that meet in a convention which includes all of their societies, some first movement abolitionists who belong to these abolition society say i believe in black capacity for freedom and black citizenship, but white prejudice

is too strong and we need to end slavery in virginia and maryland and the only way to do that is to acknowledge some people of color need to be repatriated outside this state for emancipation to take hold there. other first movement abolitionists say no, i am committed to the first movement abolitionists formula of free black citizenship and overturning white prejudice. abolitionist societies begin to really fight among each other about which course to take, whether to adopt and utilize colonization or not. lack communities within new york and especially philadelphia are more resolute in opposing colonization. black community leaders and the larger black immunities within these cities really lead public

opposition to colonization and do so in large part by reasserting first movement abolitionists ideas. the importance and the belief that white prejudice could be overcome and black citizenship was essential to any antislavery reform agenda that would ultimately be worthy of support. one important vehicle for the african-american opposition to colonization emerges with the first black owned and run newspaper founded in 1827 and co-edited by this individual here, samuel cornish. samuel cornish has a connection to the society and is well versed in abolitionist ideals and this paper becomes an important vehicle in giving full

voice to opposition to colonization, especially a voice that utilizes and draws on first movement abolitionist ideals to oppose colonization. ultimately, the first movement abolitionists or first abolitionist movement, one could say ends by 1837. that is the last year this convention of first movement abolitionist societies comes together. ultimately, what happens is a lot of the members of the abolition society, the first movement abolition society has divided about whether to embrace or reject colonization. some of them come -- become colonization us. others become antebellum abolitionists that we are more familiar with.

i argue the ideals, principles, and agenda of first movement abolitionism don't actually end with the death of the movement itself, if you will. as i have been talking about, in one way, the idea of first movement abolitionism finds form in the assertive and eloquent arguments of black activists like samuel cornish who are organizing and speaking directly out against colonization. these individuals help to influence key immediate abolitionists of the 1830's like william lloyd garrison. so there is a direct connection between first movement abolitionism and some of the ideas that emerge as central to immediate abolitionism of the 1830's. but more broadly and where i end the book is with the argument that first movement abolitionist

ideals of black civil and civic rights and the defeat of white prejudice would inspire many, later like-minded movements from radical reconstruction to civil rights activists and overall, the black movement. so there is a long-lasting and important legacy that first movement abolitionists carryforward long after the formal end of the movement itself. i'm going to end there. i have talked enough and would love it if anyone had any questions or thoughts. amelia: thank you. that was fascinating. i'm close to finishing up your book, so that was really great. i have a few questions, but i would love to hear from our attendees as well.

i'm curious -- what leads to the development of abolitionist movements in new england? you are saying these earlier movements are in the mid-atlantic region and here in nantucket, we talk a lot about the abolitionist movement, but in the mid-19th century, why did it take so long to get here? paul: that's a great question. part of what i say is first movement abolitionism i have been speaking about which is so closely connected to quakerism and quakers have been driven out of new england long before the american revolution, so they were not much of a presence there. i think also -- i don't want to slight anti-slavery activism in massachusetts both among people of color themselves and

congregationalists. connecticut had a society, massachusetts had individual important activists, but it is not until the second great awakening that you see the full flowering of a really concerted, organized abolition movement which is more broad than individual petition campaigns by black communities and individual white activists as well. there is a rich historical literature on abolitionism in new england before the 30's, so i don't want to slight that, but you don't see that same combination of quakerism, these

politically active and large-scale black community partnerships and these influential, revolutionary elites like benjamin rush come together in the same degree you see in the mid-atlantic. amelia: a couple of questions have come in. i wonder if you can give a brief explanation of the secondary awakening? paul: we can start with quakers. they are still essential and i don't want to give them short shrift here. there is a way in which historians deal -- i don't know if we call it insider baseball -- quakerism and anti-slavery is

wholly associated with quakerism. quakers are really essential. they have this idea of the theology of inner life that within each individual, there is this same essential nature and the light of god. it takes a long time for quakers to move against slavery. they are prolific slave traders in cities like philadelphia and the colonial era, but in pennsylvania in the 1760's and after the seven years war, there's a growth of this new generation of quakers who move against slavery and this spreads against other groups that turn states. they help trailblazers these strategies, anthony bennett day,

he helps lead black educational ventures that establish schools, john wallman is a really important activists and travels all across the mid-atlantic and attempts to persuade slaveholders to see the sin of slavery and trying to create a larger public anti-slavery climate that is really important for first movement abolitionism. quakers themselves are some of the most involved and hardest working members of these abolition societies i mentioned. quakers are absolutely essential as the lifeblood of this movement. so i don't want to give them short shrift. i'm glad that question was asked. the second great awakening opens up a whole other can of worms. it begins as early as the

revolution but takes hold of american society in the first three decades of the 19th century. these ideas converting the individual and the idea of individual agency to see wrong and to take control of their own moral life and then to apply that to society, that is very different from puritanism, with the idea that people are neatly simple. this idea, the more optimistic belief in the capacity of individuals to be moral, to partake in morally appropriate behavior to change the world around them in moral ways and see that as a mission, that helps to inform immediate abolitionism and it is something that is different from first movement abolitionism, but it is

a little more secularly bound whereas the second movement of immediate abolitionism is so embedded within religious ideals of the second great awakening. so there are connections but the second great awakening which does so much to inform immediate abolitionism is a byproduct of a later time than my book is looking at. amelia: and yet you really cover that so well. thank you. a couple of more questions. you touched on this a little bit. when do the terms racist and racism start being used? paul: that's a great question. the idea of race was around before the revolution, but when people use that term, they are

speaking in terms of what we would call nationality or ethnic identity. but this clear dichotomy bound and what we call race or racism between white and black, that is something that took a lot longer to develop and that is why i'm careful about my terminology because the historical actors i look at use the term prejudice. they saw white hostility to black freedom as something that could be changed. it was the product of an unenlightened, non-independent american society that had yet to really challenge this unthinking acceptance of slavery. because slavery had been excepted uncritically -- obviously not for many people who were enslaved, but on the

broader societal level, if the white public could just be shown that in fact enslaved people, once free, could be just as virtuous in their freedom and their prejudice, which is based on faulty assumptions, that could be overturned. racism becomes a much more concretize term, meaning the distinction between white and black people, increasingly as the 19th century moves forward, i mentioned how the racial climate for black people and race relations become increasingly polarized and difficult in the 1820's. racism as a pseudoscience explodes after the civil war and after reconstruction so i think

the way we think of racism as this pseudoscience of inimical ideologies that people are innately different, that is already there. the ideas are there but there is not this large-scale ideology and pseudoscience that comes to inform racism as we know it until much later in american history and i think that's important for my book because against my historical actors in the 1790's and 1820's, they see what we see has racism as prejudice and see it as much more capable of being overturned and conquered. amelia: thank you. we have had a couple of people asked a somewhat similar question. what kind of effort -- where their similar efforts for indigenous people at the same time and what kind of overlap

was there? paul: that is a certain -- that is certainly a story i don't deal as much with but it is an important one. as attempts at creating native communities that will meet the benchmarks for what europeans consider civilization stretches all the way back to 17th-century massachusetts and is probably most well-known in connection to what we call indian removal in the 1830's where you have these native communities that have adopted euro-american agriculture and religion and society and yet nonetheless are removed from their ancestral lands in what was then the southwest.

there are connections in that it's interesting -- there are actual colonization is to believe on the one hand that white and black people can't live together but on the other hand are really strongly against indian removal and on the other hand, there are those that are strongly in favor of indian removal who don't feel as strongly against it who are part of an antislavery coalition. these things don't always necessarily match up but they are intertwined at different points. was there the equivalent of this kind of movement that joined native peoples with white americans that created these societies? no. i think a big part of that was there wasn't the equivalent of

this socio-economic institution of slavery that really made the abolition movement really central in the ways that native history and this push against native exclusion and for native american rights, it's important but there wasn't the equivalent to give it broader currency like what you see with abolition movement. amelia: can you clarify why it was called immediate abolitionism? paul: absolutely. i'm happy to answer any of these definitional questions and that is an important one. immediate abolitionists or abolitionism is connected with

this idea that slavery as an institution needs to be immediately confronted and needs to immediately be put on the road to asked. by making that distinction because people think of immediate abolitionism as this argument slavery had to be ended overnight and that is actually not what immediate abolitionists are saying. they are drawing on the second great awakening idea that you have to confront sin immediately and you can't put it off. you can't just sort of say we will deal with slavery later. they are trying, by the 1830's, to make slavery a central lyrical issue and an issue americans have to confront morally. between 1790 and 1830, slavery has expanded and grown. it has more political power than

ever, and it is more of a presence in the american republic that it had been in the 1790's. so that terminology, it's more than saying slavery should end immediately, it saying the nation needs to confront slavery as a moral problem immediately and colonization us are not confronting slavery as a moral problem at all. it's often called immediate abolitionism as opposed to gradual abolitionism, which is often associated with the actors i have talked about who were advocating or who were part of this era were slavery was going to be put on the road to gradual extinction. i don't want to say there is no connection between gradual and immediate abolitionism but sometime down the line it is

drawn to starkly. amelia: we have a direct descendent of william still here with us tonight. how important was he? paul: an important figure but it emerges after i leave off. what i do in the book is turn to accommodation and its emergence to tell the wider history of why i believe first movement abolitionism has been slighted and historical memory. william still is a fascinating and important figure and i know someone writing a biography on him. he's a key figure in the other -- in the underground railroad and is an important political figure his activism is centered

in the time that goes beyond where i am focused. amelia: the next question -- i feel like i am more familiar with this, the 18 30's and onward, where there is an opposition in new england from financial institutions and this belief of opposition against compensating slave owners. were either of those -- you have all these people who are your property and they are making money, so we should compensate them. is that something that appeared? paul: that's a great question, but it is almost hiding in plain sight. after this given date, all those

people who are born to enslaved mothers because slavery is passed down through the matrilineal line, they will gain their freedom after the age of 28. it says nothing about if you are born the day before the law passes, according to that law, you are enslaved for life. if you are born the day after it passes, you will serve as an indentured servant with rights they don't have but not completely free. within that formula is an implicit but important recognition of slaveholders. it is a form of compensation right there. beyond this, there was a debate

after 1780 because there's attempts by the abolition society to utilize other laws connected to the gradual emancipation statute to gain more immediate freedom for enslaved people. so there is a debate about whether to compensate slaveholders more directly to gain quicker freedom for more people of color. that doesn't end up being adopted and there is disagreement about whether you do that, you are implying that slaveholders have total rights to property and people, so there is this debate. but the short answer is property rights and people and compensation is embedded in gradual emancipation itself. amelia: that makes sense. could you talk about what you would say most surprise you during the process of doing your

research? paul: that's a great question. every person is supposed to have an aha moment. i tried to communicate that with the image i showed that is part of the book cover for my book -- this -- i have been teasing out these different themes that i talk about as a grad student about the first abolition movement but that illustration captured in one image all of these ideals that i had been teasing out from historical records. so that's one thing. the other thing -- and going through the minutes of those records of the pennsylvania abolition society and the new york abolition society, just getting this window into the lives of these individuals that

are otherwise lost in the historical record. you will just hold your breath as you are going through the microfilm and what's going to happen? is it going to resolve? is this illegally -- is this legally enslaved person going to gain their freedom or not? you get this brief window into the lives of these people that are otherwise lost to historical record. that was exhilarating, exciting, depressing, depending on how these cases turned out. but that was another really important moment for me in the archives. amelia: something i have been thinking about -- i don't have a sense of how things have grown. could you talk about how widespread were these

organizations at the time? were these well-known groups? can you give us a scale? paul: they were well-connected connected nationally and internationally. especially the pennsylvania abolition society had connections with networks, whether it be other societies or other individuals from states ranging as far south as mississippi which is not exactly a hotbed of abolitionism in the 19th century to boston, but then across the atlantic ocean. we think of social media and we get all this communication and back in 18th century or 19th century, how did people do it? it took longer to do it because they didn't even have telegraphs

then. there's extension -- extensive networks that link these societies domestically and abroad. in terms of membership, that's important. on the one hand, they are -- there are over a thousand members to the abolition society but it is very misleading. that didn't mean you are actively involved in the society. when you hone in on these societies, and for the smaller societies and states ranging from virginia and connecticut, sometimes even smaller, you are getting 15 people at meetings and the grunt work could be six or seven people. we are talking active membership a given time could be two dozen,

200. it's on a mass movement and i don't claim it as a mass movement. that is something that differentiates it from the antebellum abolition movement of the 1830's to the civil war. the larger membership was pretty broad but active involvement in the societies was relatively small if you are talking about just the societies themselves. if you are talking about the broader link the societies had with black americans in these communities, it is water but that is outside the official membership of the societies themselves. amelia: we have about five more minutes. if there are any final questions, feel free to send the men. one more question is you talked about racism. what is your take on

[indiscernible] paul: there are so many things i could have included in my presentation. the book is very nuanced. i had the years to make it as nuanced as i possibly could and i evolve the argument. when it comes to caste, i depict that as class. there were class dimensions to this movement. what i mean is the society in certain black leaders as well like richard allen and peter williams junior, they have what we call a paternalistic approach to antislavery. they have these ideas about what made a virtuous citizen possible

and the behavior large free lack communities should take on. that you need to live up to these ideas. these ideas are putting forth a certain agenda and program for how to define virtuous citizenship and what makes for a responsible and good citizen of the republic? this movement is infused with what we call paternalism or classed-based expectations about what black freedom should look like and it's important to acknowledge that it's not racist and i think historians have unfortunately conflated paternalism with racism when it comes to abolitionism here. paternalism as an ideology in the slaveholding south is certainly racist, but paternalism within this abolition movement even though

it is classed-based and elitist at times, it is nonetheless arguing in fact the ideals of citizenship should not be defined along lines of race. in fact, a white free person and black free person are capable of living up to these ideals of citizenship and yet again, class is an important factor here. amelia: thank you. that is our last question. i want to thank you so much for taking your time to talk extensively on these topics and to thank you guys for attending. i do have the book here and so if you enjoyed tonight's talk, this is a good resource, so check it out. thank you so much for joining us and have a great night.

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