Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party

E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Janet Blenkinship, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)

On or about the latter part of July, 1853, the following document was sent on, and shortly appeared in the columns of Frederick Douglass' Paper, Rochester, N.Y., and the Aliened American, published and edited by William Howard Day, Esq., M.A., at Cleveland, Ohio, U.S., which continued in those papers every issue, until the meeting of the Convention:
Men and Brethren: The time has fully come when we, as an oppressed people, should do something effectively, and use those means adequate to the attainment of the great and long desired end—do something to meet the actual demands of the present and prospective necessities of the rising generation of our people in this country. To do this, we must occupy a position of entire equality , of unrestricted rights, composing in fact, an acknowledged necessary part of the ruling element of society in which we live. The policy necessary to the preservation of this element must be in our favor , if ever we expect the enjoyment, freedom, sovereignty, and equality of rights anywhere. For this purpose, and to this end, then, all colored men in favor of Emigration out of the United States, and opposed to the American Colonization scheme of leaving the Western Hemisphere, are requested to meet in Cleveland, Ohio, Tuesday, the 24th day of August, 1854, in a great National Convention, then and there to consider and decide upon the great and important subject of Emigration from the United States.
No person will be admitted to a seat in the Convention, who would introduce the subject of Emigration to the Eastern Hemisphere—either to Asia, Africa, or Europe—as our object and determination are to consider our claims to the West Indies, Central and South America, and the Canadas. This restriction has no reference to personal preference, or individual enterprise; but to the great question of national claims to come before the Convention.