perance reform was advocated in a
stirring address to the people. The free people of color were recommended
to petition Congress and their respective state legislatures to be
admitted to the rights and privileges of American citizenship, and to be
protected in the enjoyment of the same.

William Whipper advocated that the word 'colored' should be abandoned and
the title "African" should be removed from the name of the churches,
lodges, societies and other institutions.

In 1836, in the columns of "The Liberator" appear calls for two
conventions; the regular annual convention was called to meet in
Philadelphia, June 6, by Henry Sipkins of the Convention Board, and the
urgent language of the call implies doubt in the interest of the people or
the probability of their prompt response to the calls. William Whipper
issued the call, through the same medium, for the Convention of the
American Moral Reform to meet August 2, 1836, also in Philadelphia. It is
worthy of remark that careful perusal of the files of "The Liberator"
fails to disclose a comment on the proceedings of either convention. But
the perusal of the officers of the American Moral Reform shows the
influential man of the Convention Movement at their helm. James Forten,
Sr., the revolutionary patriot, was the President, Reuben Ruby, Rev.
Samuel E. Cornish, Rev. Walter Proctor and Jacob C. White, Sr., of
Philadelphia, were Vice Presidents, Joseph Cassey was Treasurer, Robert
Purvis, Foreign Corresponding Secretary and James Forten, Jr., Recording
Secretary.

The address was drawn up by William Watkins of Baltimore, who two decades
later was an able colleague of Frederick Douglass in the conduct of "The
North Star."

In 1837, the convention of the American Moral Reform was again held in
Philadelphia, August 19th, in which William Whipper, John P. Burr and
James Forten, Jr., were leading spirits. At the adjournment, an extra
meeting was held in St. Thomas P. E. Church, at which an address on
Temperance was delivered by John Francis Cook of Washington.

Sufficient has now been stated to show that the convention movement was
now deeply rooted in the thought of the disfranchised American. The fact
that there was a lull does not at all disprove this contention. The
conventions were great educators, alike of the Negro and the American
whites. They taught the former parliamentary usages and how to conduct
deliberative bodies. They brought to light facts pertaining to