January 1817

James Forten chaired a meeting at Bethel Church in Philadelphia attended by approximately 3,000 Black Philadelphians who unanimously rejected the American Colonization Society's plan to relocate free Black Americans to Africa. The resolution, drafted largely by Forten and Russell Parrott, was among the largest organized Black political demonstrations in the early republic.

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.