ABSTRACT
The emigration-colonization debate took place essentially within the framework of the free black community in the North—in Northern newspapers, churches, and political conventions. As an emigrationist during the 1850s, Alexander Crummell called for the voluntary emigration of free American blacks to another country outside of the United States, recognizing that in America black people could expect little hope in their claims to become citizens. There were additional differences between slave and nonslave blacks, such as the legal status of free blacks was higher than that of slaves, relative to the white American power structure. To be sure, both groups experienced the same social effects from racial hatred, and both groups were not mentioned in the United States Constitution as citizens. All black people together had to face the challenge of what their country might reveal next, though immediately after the War hopes were high that the race problem might be solved and blacks could attain some semblance of citizenship.
