Black congregations openly rejected white claims that they were unfit for freedom

Evidence

Ten days later, Garrison attended a Black Baptist church and participated in the annual celebration of England’s abolition of the slave trade. A White clergyman addressed the largely Black crowd, lecturing them that emancipation was neither wise nor safe without a long period qualifying Blacks for freedom. A murmur of disgust shot from the crowd, and an ACS agent leaped to the speaker’s defense. — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 435

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Black Baptist separatism escalated only after white control blocked black inclusion. — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 246; Baptist women’s magazines rejected Social Darwinist claims of black inferiority — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 543; The black church was a counterpublic that both opposed and internalized white norms — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 84