Afterwards the force of these conventions was directed against discriminations against colored people which still existed on the statute books. Sometimes this force took the shape of petitions, memorials, protests, and after the organization of the Ohio Equal Rights League, it took the shape of legal proceedings, etc.
One of the most memorable of these conventions was held in 1852, when John M. Langston delivered the best speech of his life, defending the thesis, “there is a mutual repellency between the white and black races of the world.”
The materials for the speech were collected by Charles Langston, but John made the speech. Time has vindicated the position taken by Mr. Langston in that memorable address. It was the beginning of the Emigration Movement in which Dr. Martin R. Delaney afterwards became prominent.
Effective national conventions have not been numerous in the past fifty years.
One of the most notable met at Rochester in 1852. Frederick Douglass presided and I had the honor of being the secretary.
It was reported that Mrs. Stowe desired to give a portion of her earnings from “Uncle Tom” for the founding of a school for the benefit of the Afro-American, and this convention was called to formulate an advisory plan.
The plan when formulated, was practically what Mr. Washington realized many years afterwards at Tuskegee.
If you knew Mr. Douglass, you perhaps know that the last years of his life were devoted to an attempt to found such a school.
The Rochester movement came to naught, but its influence upon the colored people of the country was wide spread, chiefly because of the character of the men who composed it.
Its proceedings were published in the “North Star,” and so far as I know, nowhere else. The file of that paper was destroyed with Mr. Douglass’ Rochester house, and, unless in the Congressional Library, no copy now exists.