ABSTRACT
The Boston Courier, which had a consistent record of opposing measures for the advancement of the city's black population, acknowledged editorially in 1859 the "very distinct and decided progress" made by blacks in Boston in the previous twenty-five years. Abolitionists, especially Northern black abolitionists, were necessarily circumspect about broadcasting instances of white discrimination, as they well knew to what use such admissions would be put by pro-slavery apologists. The need for Northern abolitionists to temporize their critique has made the task of assessment difficult and possibly less reliable. Assessment was further obfuscated, and has remained a problem vexing historians, because of the ambiguity of the term "anti-slavery." Among the plain people of Boston studied by Peter Knights, blacks cameo as a group conspicuous for their inferior economic status. In a long piece on "The Colored Race in Boston" carried in the Boston Courier, "Clarkson" concluded that blacks generally "had made no advance" in their employments.
