Stamped from the Beginning: Chapter 13: Gradual Equality Summary & Analysis

Remarkably enough, both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams die on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. By this point, the abolitionist movement of the Revolutionary period has lost its power. Three years after the death of the two presidents, 23-year-old William Lloyd Garrison gives the address at the American Colonization Society’s Independence Day celebration. Garrison was raised by a poor and devout Baptist single mother in Newburyport, Massachusetts. As a teenager, he was an indentured servant to the editor of a local newspaper. After finishing his seven years of indenture, Garrison became an editor at a temperance paper in Boston. His passion for the cause was influenced by the fact that both his father and older brother were alcoholics.

In 1828, Garrison meets Benjamin Lundy, the editor of the Genius of Universal Emancipation. Garrison is deeply affected by hearing Lundy preach about the evils of slavery. It is likely that, up until this moment, Garrison shares the general sense of fatalism around slavery, believing that however evil it is, it will never end. However, this all changes after hearing Lundy speak of abolition. During his Independence Day speech, Garrison criticizes the colonization movement, saying that instead people should be fighting for the “gradual abolition of slavery.” Ten days later, he gives another abolitionist speech at a Black Baptist church. He then moves to Baltimore to join the Genius of Universal Emancipation as a coeditor.

The following year, Garrison publishes an article calling for immediate abolition. In November, a “disciple” of Denmark Vesey named David Walker publishes an antiracist, antislavery pamphlet entitled Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World. Yet even this features references to Black inferiority and characterizes Africa as a wretched, backward place. Walker also blames Black people for being too politically divided to build real power, when in fact it is white people who are far more divided across the political spectrum. Despite these racist elements, the pamphlet is still overall “intoxicatingly antiracist.” He includes excerpts of the Declaration of Independence alongside his demand for freedom.

As a believer in nonviolence, Garrison is wary of Walker’s Appeal, although he admits it contains some important “truths.” In the midst of the panic surrounding the Appeal’s publication Garrison is imprisoned for seven weeks. After being released he expresses no anger about his imprisonment, explaining: “A few white victims must be sacrificed to open the eyes of the nation.” Around this time Walker dies, but his ideas are taken up by others, including the early Black feminist Maria Stewart. Garrison moves back to Boston and in January 1831 publishes the first issue of a new abolitionist paper, The Liberator.

From this point forward, Garrison commits to fighting for immediate emancipation, a cause he will support for the rest of his life. But he’s also an assimilationist, advocating for “gradual equality” and arguing that Black people should strive to become like white people. He claims that if Black people properly assimilate, racism will dissolve on its own. In reality, the history of the early 19th century indicates that assimilation and uplift suasion are ineffective at eradicating racism. During this time, sensationalist media begins to issue hysterical reports about Black neighborhoods, depicting them as overrun with depravity and crime.

Many of the poor European immigrants arriving en masse to America face ethnic prejudice of their own and retaliate by expressing anti-Black ideas. This period is when the country’s first minstrel shows take place, with white actors performing racist caricatures such as “Old darky,” Mammy,” “yaller gal,” and “Dandy”/“Zip Coon.” This last figure is a mocking representation of “an upwardly mobile northern Black male” whose assimilationist aspirations attract the scorn of audiences. Meanwhile, the young showman P. T. Barnum tours with an elderly Black woman “exhibit” who he claims is the 161-year-old former “mammy” of George Washington. Children’s books and games are filled with slavery imagery, encouraging children to adopt racist ideas.

On August 21, 1831, the enslaved freedom fighter Nat Turner kills at least 57 enslavers in a rebellion that lasts two days. Before being hanged, Turner testifies that his actions were the will of God. When asked if he repents, he replies, “Was not Christ crucified?” Garrison is disapproving of Turner’s rebellion’s violent method and concerned that it would dissuade people from supporting abolition. In reality, Kendi notes, Garrison misses the point that “some, if not most, enslavers would die rather than set their wealth free.” Racist thought refuses to accommodate enslaved people’s resistance. When the enslaved don’t resist, they are framed as inherently submissive and docile, but when they do, it is blamed on white “agitators.”

Turner’s rebellion pushes the government to start taking abolition seriously. Yet enslavers continue to develop racist ideas because they want to justify slavery—a process that Garrison does not grasp. In 1832, he publishes a critique of the ACS entitled Thoughts on African Colonization. This ends up being a devastating blow to the ACS, which never returns to its former power. It is not just abolitionists like Garrison that oppose colonization, however; many enslavers do as well. The proslavery opposition to colonization is summarized in Thomas Roderick Dew’s book Review of the Debate in the Virginia Legislature of 1831 and 1832—a book that actually makes some fairly similar arguments to Garrison’s  Thoughts.

Back in 1828, the U.S. Senate had already denied funds to the ACS due to concerns that relocating Black people to Africa would “create a vacuum in cheap labor in seaboard cities,” thereby raising labor costs. In 1833, a group of 66 abolitionists found the American Anti-Slavery Society, gaining the support of a number of wealthy and powerful individuals. Garrison is given a “minor” role in the organization. While the AASS proclaims to advocate for racial equality, in reality members are deeply concerned about the prospect of Black people becoming part of white society or seeming themselves as the true equals of white Americans.