Content area
Full Text
It is of no use for us to sit with our hands folded, hanging our heads like bulrushes, lamenting our wretched condition; but let us make a mighty effort, and arise; and if no one will promote or respect us, let us promote and respect ourselves.
-Maria Stewart, "Religion and the Pure Principles of Morality: The Sure Foundation on Which We Must Build," 1831
The moral and intellectual powers of colored children are inferior to the powers of others, only as their advantages are inferior. . . . These children of our brethren have too long been neglected. There is among them many a gem, and whose is the guilt that they are not brought out from among the rubbish and polished?
-Susan Paul, Memoir of james Jackson:
The Attentive and Obedient Scholar, 1835
SUSAN PAUL made her formal debut as an abolitionist on 30 September 1833. Paul, a twenty-four-year-old Boston primary-school teacher and the youngest daughter of the Reverend Thomas Paul, one of the city's leading African-American ministers, had been invited to participate in a meeting of the recently established New-England Anti-Slavery Society (NEASS).1
Paul's presence was remarkable because when she made her historic transition from the private confines of her segregated school to the public, integrated abolitionist forum, she never said a word. Instead, she appeared with a small army of about thirty children from her Boston school and black Beacon Hill community. At a sign from Paul, the children, who ranged in age from three to ten years old, began to sing. Their performance a series of political and patriotic songs, songs about the injustices of slavery and the flaws of colonization-was warmly received, and the children were invited to represent their race and the abolitionist cause at future meetings. Thus was launched the remarkable activist career of Susan Paul and her Juvenile Choir.
The story of Susan Paul is the story of an African-American abolitionist who successfully negotiated a public sphere in which many felt she did not belong. With her innovative use of the children's choir, Paul first secured the backing of organized white abolitionism and then moved beyond it. She was one of a number of African-American abolitionists-including better-- known figures such as Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth-who changed...