Burroughs believed exemplary conduct could disarm white prejudice.

Evidence

As part of the renewed effort to promote uplift suasion, a group of free Blacks established the nation’s first Black newspaper, Freedom’s Journal, with its headquarters in New York City. The two editors were both biracial: Samuel Cornish, a Presbyterian preacher, and John Russwurm, the third African American college graduate in the United States. Their mission was to chronicle the uplift of the North’s 500,000 free Blacks in order to reduce prejudice. “The further decrease of prejudice, and the amelioration of the condition of thousands of our brethren who are yet in bondage greatly depend on our conduct,” the Freedom’s Journal said in its opening editorial on March 16, 1827. “It is for us to convince the world by uniform propriety of conduct, industry and economy, that we are worthy of esteem and patronage.” — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 414 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

“The true curse of slavery is not what it did to the black man, but what it has done to the white man,” Justice William O. Douglas wrote in his concurring opinion. “For the existence of the institution produced the notion that the white man was of superior character, intelligence, and morality. The blacks were little more than livestock—to be fed and fattened for the economic benefits they could bestow through their labors, and to be subjected to authority, often with cruelty, to make clear who was master and who slave.” Douglas went on to conclude, “Some badges of slavery remain today. While the institution has been outlawed, it has remained in the minds and hearts of many white men. Cases which have come to this Court depict a spectacle of slavery unwilling to die.” — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 582 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The yard-beautification campaign targeted segregationist justifications directly. — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 1613; Burroughs prioritized internal moral reform over the physical alley conditions — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 926; Uplift suasion assumed Black conduct causes White prejudice. — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning: The…, 414 (+1 more)

Related

• Uplift suasion assumed Black conduct causes White prejudice. (similarity 0.85)

Broader Connections

• Uplift suasion assumed Black conduct causes White prejudice. #corroborates (0.90) — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 414
• Slavery’s principal enduring harm is the corruption of white attitudes #qualifies (0.75) — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 582