Abstract
Webster’s Dictionary defines a conservative as someone “disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc. and to resist change.”1 From the standpoint of both the historic and contemporary black experience, it seems contradictory, if not unimaginable, for an African American to be consent ative. Yet, during the past twenty- five years, an increasing number of blacks have publicly embraced and espoused the conservative designation. Although black conservative ideology may be unpalatable to most African Americans, this does not negate conservatism’s long standing presence, if not popularity, in the African American community. The American Moral Reform Society (AMRS), of the mid to late 1830s, represents one important aspect of the African American conservative tradition.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Lewis A. Randolph, “A Historical Analysis and Critique of Contemporary Black Con-servatism”, The Western Journal of Black Studies, 19 (Fall 1995): 150–51.
Phillip S. Foner, History of Black Americans: From the Emergence of the Cotton Kingdom to the Eve of the Compromise of 1850 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1983), pp. 311–12
Howard H. Bell, “The American Moral Reform Society, 1836–1841”, Journal of Negro Education, 27 (Winter 1958): 34.
Howard H. Bell, ed., Minutes of the Proceedings of the National Negro Conventions, 1830–1864 (New York: Arno Press, 1969), p. 5.
For an overview of the experiences of northern free blacks in early-to mid-nineteenth-century America, see Leon Litwack, North of Slavery: The Negro in the Free States, 1790–1860 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961)
Leonard Curry, The Free Black in Urban America, 1800–1850 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981).
Julie Winch, Philadelphia’s Black Elite: Activism, Accommodation, and the Struggle for Autonomy, 1787–1848 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988), p. 109.
C. Peter Ripley, ed., The Black Abolitionist Papers, Volume III: The United States, 1830–1846 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), p. 238.
David Walker, David Walker’s Appeal, in Four Articles, Together with A Preamble, to the Colored Citizens of the World, But in Particular, and Very Expressly, to Those of the United States of America, with an introduction by James Turner (Baltimore: Black Classics Press, 1993; originally published in 1829), p. 32.
Stephen B. Oates, The Fires of Jubilee: Nat Turner’s Fierce Rebellion (New York: Harper and Row, 1975).
Thomas M. Lessl, “William Whipper”, in Richard W. Leeman, ed., African American Orators: A Bio-Critical Sourcebook (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996), p. 377.
Herbert Aptheker, ed., A Documentary History of the Negro People in the United States (New York: The Citadel Press, 1969), p. 18.
For a complete examination of the True Reformers and William Washington Browne, see David M. Fahey’s The Black Lodge in White America: “True Reformer” Browne and His Economic Strategy (Dayton, OH: Wright State University Press, 1994).
Louis E. Lomax, The Negro Revolt (New York: Signet Books, 1963), pp. 190–91.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2002 Gayle T. Tate and Lewis A. Randolph
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Weems, R.E. (2002). The American Moral Reform Society and the Origins of Black Conservative Ideology. In: Tate, G.T., Randolph, L.A. (eds) Dimensions of Black Conservatism in the United States. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230108158_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230108158_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-0-312-29370-3
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-10815-8
eBook Packages: Palgrave Social & Cultural Studies CollectionSocial Sciences (R0)