Northern abolitionists’ antislavery stance still confirmed blacks as foreign to America.

Evidence

When Frederick Douglass embarked on his career as an antislavery orator, white people—even those who were passionate abolitionists—refused to believe that a black slave could display such intelligence. The belief in the permanence of slavery was so widespread that even white abolitionists found it difficult to imagine black people as equals. — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 53 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim
• XREF: connects to: Even white abolitionists could not imagine black people as equals — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 53

Related

• Even white abolitionists could not imagine black people as equals (similarity 0.91)
• Abolitionists weaponized racial passing to challenge planters’ claims to whiteness (similarity 0.87)
• Manumitted slaves still lacked full rights as persons and poets (similarity 0.87)
• White abolitionists confined Black speakers to testimony rather than analysis (similarity 0.82)
• Even some abolitionists doubted Black people would ever be free in America (similarity 0.81)
• Northern abolitionists opposed slavery yet still viewed Black Americans as foreign to the republic. (similarity 0.81)
• White-labor versus black comparisons served to deflect abolition, not broaden it. (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Even white abolitionists could not imagine black people as equals #expands (0.80) — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 53