the North Carolina Freedmen Convention

Grand Old Partisan memorializes one of the first instances of African-Americans getting involved in politics. September 29th 1865, one hundred fifty delegates – nearly all emancipated slaves – attended what they called a 'Convention of Freedmen'.

Along with two hundred spectators, the event took place at an AME Church in Raleigh, North Carolina. By the pulpit was a bust of Abraham Lincoln and an inscription: "with malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right."

They timed it to influence the drafting of a new state constitution, set to begin three days later. Their resolution called for “by political and moral means, as far as may be, the repeal of all laws and parts of laws, State and National, that make distinctions on account of color."

Originating this event was Edian Markham, who had escaped bondage and studied for the ministry. Presiding was James Hood, influential African-American Republican activist. This convention established an Equal Rights League, which backed the state GOP.

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Michael Zak is author of Back to Basics for the Republican Party, a history of GOP civil rights achievement.


Each day, his YouTube videos and TikTok videos and Rumble videos and Grand Old Partisan blog celebrate more than seventeen decades of Republican heroes and heroics. And, see Speech Raves for audience feedback from his presentations in thirty-one states.

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