Henry Highland Garnet Delivers 'Address to the Slaves of the United States'

At the National Negro Convention in Buffalo, New York, Henry Highland Garnet delivered a thunderous speech calling on enslaved people to rise up and resist their bondage, declaring 'Resistance! Resistance! Resistance!' The address was so radical that the convention narrowly voted against publishing it, with Frederick Douglass among those opposing its incendiary call to arms. Garnet's speech marked a generational shift toward more militant abolitionism and anticipated the debates over violent resistance that would define the movement's final years.