WILLIAM WHIPPERWhipper, William

William Whipper (1804-76) first became known for his "free labor and temperance" grocery in Philadelphia. During the 1830s Whipper attended the annual National Negro Conventions regularly, and in 1835 he helped found the American Moral Reform Society and served as the editor of its journal, the National Reformer. That same year, Whipper moved to Pennsylvania's interior, where he became involved in the lumber business and in the Underground Railroad. Initially Whipper rejected the idea of racially based reform movements, but late in life he came to accept African American organizations as necessary for the attainment of racial equality. Because he desired the "moral elevation" of African Americans within American society, he often agreed with Douglass's approach to political and social reform. During the 1850s Whipper supported the emigrationist movement, but the outbreak of the Civil War prevented him from moving himself and his family to Canada. Instead, he returned to Philadelphia after the war and worked as a cashier for the Freedman's Bank, which failed in 1873. Richard P. McCormick, "William Whipper: Moral Reformer," Pennsvlvania History, 43:23-48 (January 1976); Jack Salzman, David L. Smith, and Cornel West, eds., Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History, 5 vols. (New York, 1996), 5:2817-18; DANB, 643. ¹William Whipper (1804-76), a black abolitionist from Pennsylvania, was a leading spokesman for the American Moral Reform Society and editor of its journal, the National Reformer, in 1838 and 1839. He was active in black rights conventions, aided fugitives on the Underground Railroad, and advocated Canadian immigration. Hutton, Early Black Press, 33-34; Richard P. McCormick, "William Whipper: Moral Reformer," Pennsylvania History, 43:23-46 (January 1976). TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS AND MARTIN R. DELANY

Columbia, Pa. 23 [January] 1848.²The North Star lists the date of this letter as 23 July 1848; however, the printed date must be a typesetting error because Douglass commenced publication of his newspaper on 3 December 1847, and William Whipper’s letter appears in the 4 February 1848 edition. NS, 3 December 1847.

MESSRS. EDITORSDelany, Martin Robison

Born to a free mother and a slave father in Charlestown, in western Virginia, Martin Robison Delany (1812-85) was an editor, physician, and leading advocate of black emigration. In 1822 Delany's mother moved to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, where his father later joined them, and the young Delany attended a local school. In 1831 he moved to Pittsburgh where he worked as a barber, attended a school run by a black Methodist minister, and studied medicine, upgrading his occupation from “cupper and leecher“ to physician. Between 1843 and 1847, Delany was editor of the Mystery, a black Pittsburgh newspaper. For the next two years he served as co-editor of Doug1ass’s North Star and lectured and traveled extensively to gain new subscriptions for that paper. In 1850-51 Delany attended Harvard Medical College but, owing to protests from white students, was denied admission to the final term needed to complete his medical degree. The following year he wrote The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States, Politically Considered (Philadelphia, 1852), in which he argued that emigration was the only remedy for the oppressed state of black Americans. When many black abolitionists, including Douglass, rejected Delany's position, he organized a series of National Emigration Conventions that met in 1854, 1856, and 1858. These assemblies created a permanent National Board of Commissioners, of which Delany was president and chief propagandist. In 1856 Delany moved to Chatham, Canada West, and three years later explored the Niger river valley in Africa looking for possible emigration sites. His novel Blake was serialized in the Weekly Anglo-African from November 1861 through May 1862. During the Civil War, Delany served the North first as a recruiter and examining surgeon and eventually as a major of the 104th U.S. Colored Troops. From 1865 to 1868 Delany was a Freedmen's Bureau officer in South Carolina and later was active in that state's politics, running unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor on the Independent Republican ticket in 1874. Ullman, Martin R. Delany, 52-103, 115-21, 140-71, 211-46; Dorothy Sterling, The Making of an Afro-American: Martin Robison Delany, 1812—1885 (Garden City, N.Y., 1971); Thomas Holt, Black Over White: Negro Political Leadership in South Carolina during Reconstruction (Urbana, Ill., 1977), 74-75, 176-77; Miller, Search for a Black Nationality, 115-33, 171-83; Martin R. Delany, Blake; or, The Huts of America, ed. Floyd J. Miller (Boston, 1970), ix; DAB, 5: 219-20. :—

The object of your article in the North Star, “on Colored Newspapers,” is,
to my mind, to strike a blow at what may be supposed popular objections

against “colored newspapers.”³On 7 January 1848 Douglass published an editorial in which he responded to charges that the existence of black newspapers tacitly promoted the separation of the races. Douglass argued that newspapers owned and run by black people served to illustrate the equality of the races. Unless otherwise noted, all quotations in this letter are from that article. NS, 7 January 1848.—The question naturally arises, What qualities
or qualifications should a newspaper possess to entitle it to the surname
“Colored?”

I have looked carefully over the columns of the “North Star,” and I am
unable to discover any just reason why it should be termed a “colored news
paper,” any more than the Liberator, Standard,⁴The National Anti-Slavery Standard. Freeman,⁵A weekly abolitionist newspaper published in Philadelphia between 1836 and 1854, the Pennsylvania Freeman was the official organ of the Eastern Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society. Early editors included Benjamin Lundy and John Greenleaf Whittier. Later editors included Charles C. Burleigh, James Miller McKim, Mary Grew, Oliver Johnson, and Cyrus M. Burleigh. The journal advocated Garrisonian reforms, but was more moderate in its editorial style in keeping with the views of the Quaker-dominated membership of the organization. Blassingame, Antislavery Newspapers, 3:57-59; Ripley, Black Abolitionist Papers, 3:391-92n. or many other
Anti-Slavery periodical.

Is it because it is edited by “colored men?” Certainly not. Is it because
it advocates the emancipation of the slave, and the overthrow of prejudice?
Certainly not; for the papers I have mentioned have maintained the same
noble cause, in a manner and with an ability that has never been surpassed.
You have asserted in your motto, that “Truth is of no color.”⁶The full motto of the North Star was, “Right is of no sex—Truth is of no color—God is the father of us all, and all we are brethren.” NS, 7 January 1848. Then you
will certainly agree that its omnipotent power cannot be accelerated by the
complexion of those who herald it? Is it because the term colored has been
asserted at the head of the paper, as formerly in the “Colored American,”
and “African Sentinel?”⁷Published weekly in New York City and edited by Samuel Cornish, Phillip Bell, and Charles B. Ray, the Colored American (1837-42) was Cornish’ s fourth and most successful attempt to publish an abolitionist-minded newspaper. John G. Stewart published the African Sentinel and Journal of Liberty (1831-32) in Albany, New York. This journal was a monthly dedicated to the opposition of slavery and racial prejudice, as well as other moral reform issues. Hutton, Early Black Press, 40, 165; Ripley, Black Abolitionist Papers, 2:50n, 79. Certainly not; because they have long since
ceased to exist, and their ghosts, however comely, no longer haunt our vi
sion. Now, if they were right in placing this distinctive characteristic at the
head of their papers, (like those of many of our religious, literary and ben
eficial institutions,) why not follow their example, by introducing it into
your paper, so that its name may be hereafter called “The Colored North
Star?” Such a course, would, in my humble opinion, place you in a very
consistent position to advocate its perpetuity, and would save you from the
pain, penalty and mortification of being placed under that ban of proscription
which you have framed for others, when you say that “there is neither
good sense nor common honesty in trying to forget this distinction.”

In the true spirit of charity, I am inclined to believe that your language
in the above quotation has misrepresented your views. If I am capable of
interpreting the meaning of your motto, your object is to labor for the over
throw of all those distinctions that conflict with the true interests of the
“common brotherhood of the human race.”

You assert that “we have sometimes heard persons regret the very men
tion of color on this account, and counsel its abandonment.” It may be, that
when your mind becomes refreshed with a scrap of history on that point,
you will find the possibility (at least) of their views being misrepresented.

I believe that the first public discussion about the use of the term “col
ored,” about which “you say you are in no wise sensitive,” (although you
have not chosen to adopt it in practice) took its rise from the introduction
of the following resolution, which was discussed and unanimously adopted

at a Convention held in the city of Philadelphia, in the month of June, 1835:
“Resolved, That we recommend to our people (as far as possible) to aban
don the use of the word ‘colored,’ whether speaking or writing, concern
ing themselves; and, especially, to remove the title of ‘African’ from their
institutions, churches,” &c., &c.⁸At the Fifth Annual Convention for the Improvement of the Free People of Colour, held in the Wesley Church in Philadelphia on 1-5 June 1835, Whipper himself proposed the resolution that he quotes, one that the convention unanimously adopted. Bell, “1835—Philadelphia: Minutes of the Fifth Annual Convention,” in National Negro Conventions, 14-15.

It is useless to attempt to describe (to those who are familiar with the
cause of reform) the excited feelings of many at the introduction of this
new feature of reform. It struck a blow at their pride and prejudices; its ad
vocates were vilified, and their language misconstrued. It is from this lat
ter basis, I fear, you have drawn your arguments.

Now the discussion and excitement attendant on the introduction of
this new system, has passed; the arguments of its opponents have either
been exhausted or hushed into silence. The use of the term has been avoided
in the formation of new institutions—newspapers, and your own not ex
cepted. The time was when our contributions for the press, few and feeble
as they were, were stamped with the complexional source from which they
emanated. Now it is otherwise; and I rejoice in what I believe the progres
sive spirit of this age. But if the question is to be exhumed from the grave
of the past, I know of none so able as yourselves to impart it resurrectionary
power and life. I say, if the negative of this course is to be introduced by
the Editors of the North Star, let us have it.—Give us your views at length,
so that your readers may be able to comprehend your true position.⁹Douglass and Delany did not publish an editorial response to Whipper’s letter in the North Star It is a
question of duty, and if it lies entombed in darkness, let us disencumber it
of the rubbish of the past, so that its luminous rays may light up our path
way to future action.

Yours, for Equality.

W. W.

PLIr: NS, 4 February 1848.