The Heritage Museum and Cultural Center in St. Joseph will be holding an event centered around the United States Constitution and its links to the antislavery movement.
The event, titled “For Each and All: America’s Constitution and the Antislavery Movement,” will take place Wednesday, August 21 at 6:30 p.m. Admission is free with a suggested $5 donation to the Heritage Museum.
Today most scholars agree that before the Civil War, the United States Constitution allowed, and perhaps even protected slavery. The majority in antebellum America, both North and South, also held this view. Yet a vocal minority believed that the Constitution was a charter for political action against slavery.
Frederick Douglass came to this conviction, and later, Martin Luther King, Jr. worked from the same tradition. Lesser know abolitionists before the Civil War, some from Michigan, laid the foundation for this interpretation. Essential to this movement was an answer to the question: Who is meant by “We the People?”
Dr. Christopher Momany, author of “For Each and All: the Moral Witness of Asa Mahan,” and a graduate of Adrian College, Princeton Theological Seminary and Drew University, will be hosting the event, bringing this fascinating and often overlooked story to life while pointing to its relevance for our time.
