The Film: Interview Transcripts: Charles Blockson

Charles Blockson, historian on
slavery and the Liberty Bell
When I was growing up I didn’t know that there was slavery here in the state of Pennsylvania, which was named for William Penn, who, himself, as it turned out, was a slave holder.  William Penn owned several slaves and so did many of the early Quakers and other merchants in Philadelphia. The earliest enslaved Africans came here in 1639 among the Dutch, the Swedes, the Finns and then the English.  So, there were auction blocks in the City of Brotherly Love, and yet the Liberty Bell is a sacred symbol of freedom. 

As school children, we would come 18 miles on the school bus from Norristown to Philadelphia just to touch the Liberty Bell.  No one ever told me that there was connection with slavery.  It was not until I was doing my research for my first book, Pennsylvania Black History, that I came across documentation that the Liberty Bell had a direct connection with slavery. 

There was a group of people, more or less, open minded people, who called themselves the Friends of Freedom.  They published a pamphlet from 1839 to 1859 declaring that “that old bell” that hangs in the state house, now known as Independence Hall, should proclaim liberty throughout the land.  Abolitionists, Lucretia Mott, Henry David Thoreau, William Loyd Garrison, Frederick Douglas – all part of the Underground Railroad --  they all wrote in this pamphlet.  Even Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote from England questioning the idea of slavery in the nation’s first capitol, where George Washington was President. 

People are still speaking out today.  Just six months ago (during the renovations of Independence Hall in 2001) archeologists uncovered a stable, a place where George Washington kept his personal slaves.  There was a furor among the populous here, there were letters to the editor, and it finally took an amendment to an act of Congress requiring the National Park Service to commemorate the presence of slaves at the nation’s first presidential mansion.  So even the Liberty Bell, our most sacred symbol, was connected with slavery.

his personal journey

slave revolts

Pennsylvania’s UGRR

children and the UGRR

preserving UGRR sites

.