Newark’s Black community has a long history of activism for liberation.
For more than 250 years, free and enslaved Blacks worked for the liberation of themselves and others, building a community of activists and boldly standing up for their civil rights.
This work served as the foundation for the political activism and cultural force of today’s Newark.
The African presence in New Jersey dates back to the 1600s. The earliest known evidence of enslaved Africans in Newark appears in slave owner Azariah Crane’s will, dated 1721.
The earliest documented “self-liberation” in Newark was by a 35-year-old Black man named Charles, who ran away from his enslaver, Emanuel Cocker, in 1748.
The American Revolutionary War (1775-83) advanced the ideals of universal human equality but left intact the economic and social underpinnings of slavery. Some enslaved Africans saw the Revolution as an opportunity to advance their individual and community liberation.
Jack Cudjo Banquante, a native-born African enslaved by Benjamin Coe of Newark, was the only known Black Newarker to gain his freedom in recognition of his heroism in the Revolutionary War.
Beginning in the early 1800s, fugitive slaves from Southern states increasingly came through New Jersey on their journey to Northern states and Canada, where they hoped to live as free individuals.
The Underground Railroad—the secretly organized network of institutions, safe houses, and like-minded Black and White abolitionist activists—operated in several states including New Jersey and assisted individuals in their strategies for freedom.
New Jersey had twelve confirmed safe houses as part of the Underground Railroad. Newark’s known safe house, located at 70 Warren Street, was built in 1830 by Jacob D. King, a leader in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (the first Black church in Newark) and a founding member of the Colored Anti-Slavery Society of Newark.
Newark’s Black religious institutions were multifaceted sites for racial pride, education, community organizing, Underground Railroad activism, and fundraising for Black liberation.
In 1849, Frederick Douglass spoke at the Colored Presbyterian Church to promote his newspaper, The North Star, and to rally the city’s vibrant Black abolitionist community for the cause of freedom.
The Colored Anti-Slavery Society of Newark was one of the first Black-led anti slavery organizations in the country. Organized in 1834 by local clergy and working-class Blacks, the Society called for an immediate end to slavery in New Jersey and worked tirelessly towards it.
Newark-based white abolitionists also fought for the immediate end to slavery. Some, not all, believed that Blacks should have full civil rights here in the United States, while some advocated for a mass relocation of free Blacks to Africa.
The goal of the American Colonization Society, for instance, was to gradually settle free Blacks and emancipated slaves in Liberia.
Many of the earliest successful Black Newark business owners were important supporters of the Underground Railroad. For instance, it is believed that Black stagecoach owners were essential to the network. Transporting people to New York City and other major towns gave them the cover to assist fugitive slaves on their route to freedom.
The goal of the American Colonization Society, for instance, was to gradually settle free Blacks and emancipated slaves in Liberia.
In the mid-1800s, Newark’s leaders openly opposed abolitionist calls to federally end slavery, fearing it would destroy the city’s valuable customer base in the South.
In 1839, a public meeting chaired by Newark’s mayor and attended by the city’s leading politicians, industrialists, and merchants resolved that the federal government should not intervene in Southern states’ choice to continue slavery, thus preserving their economic and financial interests.
In his first act as governor of New Jersey, Marcus L. Ward, a Newark native who lived at 51 Washington Street, secured the state’s ratification of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution on January 23, 1866. As the last state in the Union to fully abolish slavery, New Jersey joined its neighbors in supporting the freedom of all Black people.