Owen Lovejoy and the Coalition for Equality: Clergy, African Americans, and Women United for Abolition by Jane Ann Moore and William F. Moore

Abstract

Reviewed by: Owen Lovejoy and the Coalition for Equality: Clergy, African Americans, and Women United for Abolition by Jane Ann Moore and William F. Moore Rochelle E. Danquah Jane Ann Moore and William F. Moore. Owen Lovejoy and the Coalition for Equality: Clergy, African Americans, and Women United for Abolition. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2020. 254 pp. $28.00 (paper). With the Northwest Ordinance (1787), the Confederation Congress prohibited slavery in the states that would become the Midwest. Nonetheless, slavery did exist in midwestern states. The state of Illinois, for example, subjected African Americans to Black Codes, servitude contracts, racial mob violence, and other forms of White terrorism. Shadrach Bond, the state's first governor, owned several enslaved African Americans. Against this backdrop of blatant support for an institution supposedly banned since 1787, forces began organizing to abolish slavery in Illinois and the United States. Owen Lovejoy and the Coalition for Equality: Clergy, African Americans, and Women United for Abolition explores the relationship among, and inner workings of, three groups that formed an alliance to end slavery. Authors Jane Ann Moore and William F. Moore claim politicians and White abolitionists such as Owen Lovejoy, African Americans, and women all "agreed to put abolition ahead of the other needed reform movements of the day and decided that the constitutional political system offered the best way to break the spell of the Slave Power" (1). As early as 1824, proslavery legislators attempted to legalize slavery in [End Page 83] Illinois. Unsuccessful, they continued to make the state an unwelcoming space for African Americans. The authors acknowledge that African Americans were "the primary instigators of the antislavery movement [in Illinois]" (6), but proslavery agitators responded with "physical violence" to perpetuate White supremacy. Most famously, Lovejoy's older brother Elijah was murdered by a proslavery mob in Alton for publishing an antislavery newspaper. Lovejoy's coalition "responded with political activism, building a succession of political parties that envisioned practical and progressive legislation on behalf of African Americans, ultimately becoming the operative radical core of the Republican Party" (5). Owen Lovejoy's leadership, uncompromising antislavery sentiments, and pervasive political activism—in conjunction with African Americans, clergy, and women—helped to transform racial barriers and unjust policies in America. Owen Lovejoy and the Coalition for Equality consists of nine chapters that encompass Lovejoy's life as an abolitionist, politician, and revolutionary Christian organizer from 1811 to 1864. Chapters 1 through 3 describe Lovejoy's life from childhood to young adulthood and the experiences that shaped his antipathy toward slavery. In Chapter 2, the authors claim Lovejoy "had a transforming experience" while working with African American ministers Henry Highland Garnet, Samuel Ringgold Ward, and Charles B. Ray at the 1843 Liberty Party convention. These men showed Lovejoy an example of Black agency, and they clearly demonstrated that African Americans, whether free or enslaved, were capable of determining and defining their demands for freedom, justice, and equality. This example of Black advocacy became a pivotal teaching moment in Lovejoy's life that would continue to have a profound impact on his religious conviction and radical antislavery opinions. Chapters 4 through 6 concentrate on Lovejoy's political career in Illinois and his antislavery coalition that grew with the support of African Americans and women between 1852 and 1859. He was instrumental in organizing the Republican Party in Illinois, forging a close friendship with Abraham Lincoln. In 1856, Lovejoy won a congressional seat and immediately started working to repeal proslavery laws. The authors argue that "Lovejoy expanded the Illinois coalition with Black clergy and leading women at the national level" to continue the fight for abolition (132). Chapters 7 and 8 discuss Lovejoy's political career and the coalition's continued efforts to eradicate slavery from 1859 to 1864. During this period, he continued to serve in the House of Representatives, and he steadfastly [End Page 84] supported Lincoln even when Confederate military victories and northern Democrats threatened the president's political fortunes. This section of the book examines in great detail his efforts to move beyond merely ending slavery as he "pushed legislation reflecting the priorities of Blacks, women, and churchmen in the coalition for equality" (175). Jane...