ABSTRACT
George A. Levesque argues that a middle way existed between the African American community which coalesced following the Revolution and that of the dominant white community. Contributing to this discussion, David W. Blight has largely agreed with Levesque on the complexity of antebellum African American thought and of the need to abandon the "'separation-integration' dichotomy." The political culture developed by Northern African American activists before the Civil War developed from the rhetoric of the American Revolution and evangelical religion. African American John Malvin spent his adult life working for elevation in Ohio. Northern African Americans were the first overwhelmingly urban Americans, the first to demand the expansion of civil and political rights beyond the narrow circle of adult white males, among the first to practice a form of interest-group politics and to demand a multi-racial society.
