American Literature / Unit 5 AML 0422 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Absalom Jones and the Petition Tradition
Captions available
The idea
Born into slavery in Delaware in seventeen forty-six, Absalom Jones taught himself to read, attended a Quaker night school, and was freed in seventeen eighty-four. He became the first African American ordained a priest, and his petitions put grievances before government in the Revolution's own language of rights.
In practice
Self-taught, freed, ordained, and petitioning.
Where people slip
Petition was the available political form.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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