Struggle & Resistance Achievement & Excellence

1843

At the National Negro Convention in Buffalo in August 1843, Henry Highland Garnet delivers "An Address to the Slaves of the United States," urging enslaved people to strike for freedom by force if necessary: "Rather die freemen than live to be slaves." Frederick Douglass opposes the address as too incendiary. It is not officially adopted — but circulates widely and shifts the debate.

Zoom in — months

Key events

January 1843
Henry Highland Garnet Calls for Enslaved People to Revolt
At the National Negro Convention in Buffalo in August 1843, Henry Highland Garnet delivers "An Address to the Slaves of the United States," urging enslaved people to strike for freedom by force if necessary: "Rather die freemen than live to be slaves." Frederick Douglass opposes the address as too incendiary. It is not officially adopted — but circulates widely and shifts the debate.
August 16, 1843
Henry Highland Garnet's "Address to the Slaves"
Garnet calls on the enslaved to resist — a militant break with moral-suasion abolitionism that stuns the 1843 convention.