On this day in history, January 9, 1894, Frederick Douglass responded to the American Colonization Society during a speech entitled "The Folly of Colonization."The original mission of the ACS was to send free blacks to Africa because they threatened the stability of slavery.
After slavery ended and the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments were adopted, the ACS changed its mission to the general benevolence of the African continent by sending America's best black citizens as missionaries.
During his speech Douglass said, "This latest colonization scheme is unworthy of American statesmanship and American honor. It weakens the Negro's hold on his own country and makes him doubtful where he should feel confident. It forces upon him the idea that he is forever doomed to be a stranger and a sojourner in the land of his own birth and has no permanent abiding place."
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