3,000 Black Philadelphians Reject American Colonization Society

Three thousand free Black Philadelphians gathered at Bethel AME Church, the largest Black political meeting in American history to that date, and unanimously condemned the American Colonization Society (founded 1816). Led by James Forten and Richard Allen, they resolved: 'We never will separate ourselves voluntarily from the slave population in this country.' The meeting defined a generation of Black anti-colonization politics.