Speech Time Frame: 1861-1877
(1864) Abraham Lincoln “Address at a Sanitary Fair”
During the Civil War Northerners organized sanitary fairs to raise funds on behalf of the United States Sanitary Commission, a...
(1865) Frederick Douglass, “What the Black Man Wants”
In the 1950s and 1960s during the height of the civil rights movement when African American activists articulated their grievances...
(1875) Congressman James T. Rapier, “Half Free, Half Slave”
On February 4, 1875, Congressman James T. Rapier of Alabama, rose on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives...
(1866) Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, “We Are All Bound Up Together”
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] Voices of Black Suffragists A free-born native of Baltimore, Maryland, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper gave her first anti-slavery...
(1874) John Mercer Langston, “Equality Before the Law”
John Mercer Langston, a prominent abolitionist and civil rights activist, was one of the earliest African American officeholders in the...
(1867) Thaddeus Stevens, “Reconstruction”
In 1867 Pennsylvania Congressman Thaddeus Stevens and Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner led the campaign for full voting rights for African...
(1867) Thaddeus Stevens, Address to Colored Delegation”
Thaddeus Stevens was one of the most influential congressmen in the U.S. House of Representatives in the late 1860s. Considered...
(1867) Frederick Douglass, “Appeal to Congress for Impartial Suffrage”
In 1867 Frederick Douglass, noted abolitionist and civil rights leader, weighed in on one of the most contentious issues of...
(1863) Angelina Grimké Weld “Address at the Women’s Loyal National League”
By the time of the Civil War Angelina Grimke Weld had spent three decades fighting the institution of slavery. The...
