wcaleb’s avatarwcaleb’s Twitter Archive—№ 19,826

                  1. As long as we're all here waiting, let me tell you about James Forten and the long struggle for voting rights in Philadelphia.
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                1. …in reply to @wcaleb
                  Forten was born a free man in PA in 1766. Stood outside the State House to hear the first reading of the Declaration of Independence. Was captured by the British while serving on a patriot privateer in the Revolution. But could he vote in the new republic?
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              1. …in reply to @wcaleb
                The answer isn't clear. The PA constitution of 1790 technically permitted "every freeman of the age of twenty-one years" who had resided in the state 2 years & paid a tax to vote. No explicit racial barrier. So he's good, right?
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            1. …in reply to @wcaleb
              He clears the tax bar for sure because did I mention the man went on to own his own sail-making business and invested heavily, employing more than two dozen white men who worked for him? Dude was loaded (comparatively speaking).
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          1. …in reply to @wcaleb
            But many foreign travelers to the US in Forten's lifetime noted that Black voters didn't seem to make use of the ballot they technically had the right to in eastern PA. A Brit, Edward Abdy, said that "they seldom or never make any use of it in Philadelphia."
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        1. …in reply to @wcaleb
          One Englishman, Andrew Ball, asked a white Philadelphian in the early 1830s why Black Philadelphians didn't come to the polls as allowed by law. "His answer was significant, 'Just let them try!'"
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      1. …in reply to @wcaleb
        So did Forten try to vote himself? Hard to say. But here's what he did do circa 1822: made sure those white guys who worked for him went to the polls and VOTED. Total boss move, right?
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    1. …in reply to @wcaleb
      As for voting himself though ... no clear evidence he did. He might have been prevented by white Andrew Bell called "the mobbish antipathy to the men of colour, which might have been the means of setting the whole country in a flame."
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  1. …in reply to @wcaleb
    ^ that's WHAT Andrew Bell called. It's late, OK!
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