Sandwiched In

Sandwiched In:
Free African-American Communities in the 19th Century

Dr. Marsha J. Tyson Darling will focus on the evolution and social agency of free African American communities in the aftermath of the American Revolution, dating from 1787 to the eve of the Civil War. While we are accustomed to the understanding that slavery enveloped the lives of the majority of Blacks in the ante-bellum period, it was the evolution of free African American communities formed after the American Revolution that served to create and sustain significant self-help organizations and institutions; it is not well known that these communities were vital to anti-slavery abolitionist efforts.