Colored conventions reframed protest as citizenly demands

Evidence

The last national colored convention on record was held in 1893. There, gathered in Cincinnati, Ohio, some five hundred Black activists upheld a tradition that had begun more than six decades earlier. Delegates stood firm in their belief that they were full and equal citizens before the Constitution. They decried the outrages of the day, including the rise of lynching. They were again among the despised. But now, as citizens, they were more fully equipped to demand that the nation live up to its ideals. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 741

Categorization

• XREF: This formation—‘again among the despised’ yet armed with citizenship—echoes earlier chapters on how free Black Americans used founding documents against their oppressors.