Black History Month: George T. Downing

George T. Downing was a success in Newport as a businessman and community leader, Downing advocated for workers’ rights and racial equity. In 1873, Downing helped to organize Newport’s participation in the National Convention for Colored People in Washington. But it was the electrifying speech by Downing a few years earlier in 1869 that set the tone for African heritage equal and employment rights as free men and women in America. In an important part of his speech to delegates, Downing stressed the importance of African Americans in realizing all three parts of the Declaration of Independence that offered to all American citizens the sacred & undeniable rights to the “preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness.” Downing believed that African Americans had earned the right to life through surviving slavery. Liberty was achieved through the end of the Civil War and the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. But the pursuit of happiness would only come from economic prosperity through education, training and gainful employment. Downing made the case that by organizing under the union labor banner, African American men and women could fulfill their rightful place as full American citizens declaring to the crowd:

“The colored man’s struggle until now has been for naked existence, for the right to life and liberty; with the fifteenth amendment, henceforth his struggle will be in the pursuit of happiness; in this instance; it is to turn his labor to the most effective account, to be respected therein; the most we can hope to effect in this gathering, is a crude organization; the formation of a labor bureau to send out agents, to organize throughout the land, to effect union with laborers without color.”

Fortunately, through the vision and leadership of individuals like George T. Downing, working African American men and women would organize to obtain their rightful place in the pursuit of happiness and prosperity in America.

Source: https://riblackheritagesociety.wildapricot.org/Creative-Survival/7860541