Multicultural Student Center

Bangor Room, Memorial Union
Professor Riordan will present a series of images of African Americans created in the new United States as a way of better understanding the experience of African Americans in the post-Revolutionary new republic. On the one hand, the Revolution had helped to make slavery a “problem” for many patriot leaders and encouraged gradual emancipation of enslaved people. On the other hand, the growing number of free blacks in the US created its own “problems.” When this first substantial freedom generation in US history made a bid for equality as citizens, especially as African Christians, it stimulated both symbolic and physical violence that denied African American claims to citizenship.