The African Civilization Society [1858-1869] was a groundbreaking movement, one of the first envisioned and led by African Americans. Founded in 1858 by Henry Highland Garnet, it sought to mobilize black Americans to emigrate to Africa. Garnet envisioned educated black Americans returning to the African Continent as cultural missionaries, essentially taking what the white oppressors had given to them by way of education, business, and political awareness, and using it to make the African continent a world power. They were essentially going to make Africa a unique iteration of the United States, including transplanting the production of cotton. It’s goals were religious, i.e. missionary, political, i.e. an African republic of states, ethical, i.e. the end of slavery, and economic, the uplift of Africa as a whole.
Headquartered in Brooklyn, the ACS brought their message to black churches and schools through the voices of prominent African Americans like Reverend Amos N. Freeman, Reverend Rufus L. Perry, Richard H. Cain, and John Sella Martin.
The ACS believed only black Americans could lead black Americans and their communities; that white people had given up their right to any say by virtue of their treatment of black Americans. This had to come as some sort of blow even to most northern white Americans, where the prevailing view was that black Americans were dependent by nature and had become more so through generations of enslavement. But the ACS called on black leaders to elevate their race and instilled in black communities a hunger for quality education to prepare them for the return to Africa.
By 1866 the African Civilization Society employed 69 African Americans engaged in teaching over 2,000 students in Sabbath and day schools in the Northeast. Also by that date, the ACS was the only black association sending teachers to the South to educate the freed people.
The African Civilization Society began to decline around 1866 due to financial difficulties. By 1869 the organization ended its activities.
The present document is excessively rare. Their original constitution, issued on a single sheet, four pages, was produced in 1858 and rarely comes to market. A deeply flawed copy is available presently for $2,000.00
The item offered here is actually a group of documents, i.e. the Constitution of the African Civilization Society, as issued in 1858, plus amendments agreed upon in 1861. Additionally, we have the prospectus for the Special Meeting of the ACS called in November of 1861, a report of the meeting, and an address by J. P. Thompson.
Thompson, J. P. African Civilization and the Cotton Trade. Address Delivered at the Special Meeting of the African Civilization Society, 1861. With, also, Constitution of the African Civilization Society. With, also, Special Meeting of the African Civilization Society, November 4th, 1861. With, also, Supplement to the Constitution of the African Colonization Society. With, also, Meeting of the Friends of African Civilization, In New York, March 18, 1861. With, also, Meeting of the Friends of African Civilization, in Brooklyn, April 8th, 1861. 39pp.
Textually complete and very good, shaken and removed from a larger sammelband. No copies on the market at any price, extremely desirable, and only a handful of copies traced institutionally.