Between 1830 and 1893, mostly non-southern freemen and post–Civil War freedmen held state and national conventions on their concerns. Chaired by educated leaders, the conclaves reflected black strategies for freedom and justice.

Antebellum delegates convened amid slavery, racism, and violence. They embraced the antislavery movement; they espoused liberty, literacy, racial pride, and economic self-help. African emigration and colonization polarized them. Emigration, said opponents, the majority, would mean forsaking slaves; to proponents, it promised independence. Both sides endorsed tactics of moral suasion and political action.

The postwar Freedmen's Conventions, National Equal Rights League, Citizens’ Equal Rights Association, and Afro-American League (1890) continued the struggle. Delegates called for Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendment rights; antilynching; education; suffrage; and equality of opportunity. “We are full-grown, native-born citizens ... All we desire is equal right, equal punishment, equal protection, equal chance, no more,” they declared, foreshadowing twentieth century African American protest.