Boston clergy’s rejection of abolitionist Lundy reflected self-interest and social-disorder fears

Evidence

Garrison first met the Quaker founder and editor of the Genius of Universal Emancipation on March 17, 1828. He sat next to eight esteemed Boston clergymen listening to Benjamin Lundy in the parlor of his boardinghouse, which was owned by a local Baptist minister. Up from Baltimore, Lundy was in town raising money for his newspaper and raising support for emancipation. The wrongs of enslavement Lundy spoke about that night wrenched Garrison’s heart. And Lundy’s activist’s life, no doubt inspired by John Woolman, thrilled Garrison. The man seemed to be straight out of a Walter Scott novel—he had given speeches in nineteen of the twenty-four states, traveled 12,000 miles, engaged in marathon debates with slave owners, been beaten in Baltimore for his beliefs. … While Garrison sat on the edge of his seat, the eight ministers sat back. They politely listened, but only one offered to help. The others saw nothing to gain and a lot to lose in the cause of emancipation. They feared that a push for emancipation would only cause social disorder. — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 432

Categorization

• XREF: Vivid instance of Kendi’s central inversion: the ministers’ policy stance (against emancipation) is grounded in self-interest and fear of social disorder, not in reasoned ideas — exactly the mechanism the reader is tracking.