Benjamin Franklin joins abolitionist group

Slavery was a commonly accepted practice in colonial America. Washington owned slaves, as did Jefferson. Benjamin Franklin also owned two, and frequently ran advertisements in the Philadelphia Gazette for slave traders. The African men were simply inferior to the white ones, he thought, as did many in his time. But his views changed with the visit to a classroom with children of slaves: nothing about them showed they were any less smart than white children. It took ten years after the visit for his views to evolve to the point where Franklin took a radical move, joining an abolitionist group.

On this day, April 14, in 1775 Benjamin Franklin joined a Quaker abolitionist group called the Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and the Relief of Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage. Franklin began to publicly proclaim that the entire institution of slavery was morally wrong.

More than that, Franklin argued for their education. As the president of the group, he gave a public address saying provisions should be made to “instruct, to advise, to qualify those who have been restored to freedom, for the exercise and enjoyment of civil liberty … which we conceive will essentially promote the public good, and the happiness of these hitherto much neglected fellow-creatures.”