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.