Lucretia Mott and her roles in reforms
...shot and killed him. There were many views on this incident, some people believed that he was being heroic because he was standing up for the things that he wanted and others believed that he was wrong because he used force when trying to voice his ideas. Lucretia believed the latter of the two ideas but she still wanted to help out Lovejoy’s widow so her and her Female Anti-Slavery group decided to hold a public meeting support of Lovejoy’s widow (Binder and Reimers 231). Many people in the North began to join reform groups. Some of the reform groups that people joined were The Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, the relief of Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, and For Improving the Condition of the African Race. In later years many people of the north began to change their views toward the anti-slavery groups. As the years passed and slavery became more deeply entrenched in the south Northern businessmen began to feel that the antislavery movement was a danger, threatening the business connections with the north and the south. Conflicts began to occur and tensions began to rise. As this started to happen, Lucretia and James decided that they wanted Philadelphia to have their own building to hold antislavery and related meetings. Many people pitched in to raise money and finally on May 14, 1836 a new building was completed. This building was called Pennsylvania Hall (Binder and Reimers 232). Word got out about this historical building. Many people, especially white men began to form mobs outside of Pennsylvania Hall. The mob seemed to get larger and larger everyday. Not even the policemen tried to stop the angry mobs because for the most part most of the policemen sided with the angry mob that stood outside of the building. Speakers began to rise to calm the angry mob. Some of the people who spoke were William Lloyd Garrison, Maria Chapman, Angelina Grimke Weld, Abby Kelley, and Lucretia Mott. The speeches did not seem to help, the people just grew even more angry. The president of Pennsylvania Hall, Daniel Neall went to the mayor and asked for protection against the angry people, but the mayor would not help and said that they had brought it upon themselves (Binder and Reimers 233). As these mobs grew bigger and bigger and angrier and angrier, the delegates of the antislavery movement began to take certain precautions. When walking out of the Pennsylvania Hall, the white men would escort the black women. One day after the Hall was shut down for the night, the angry mob knocked down the doors and burned the place. After this, the mob wanted to head to the Mott’s. Luckily they were not able to find the Mott’s because a friend of the Mott’s d the mob in the wrong direction. The mob did also burn down Mother Bethel Church and the nearby Shelter for Colored Orphans. Lucretia’s antislavery feminist group was not hurt by the mob’s actions, they met the at a nearby school house (Binder and Reimers 234). The next year on May 1, 1839 Lucretia again planned to meet with her Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women group in Philadelphia. The mayor was afraid that something bad would happen again. Surprisingly enough this event passed without any sort of up rise. On one occasion in 1853 when Lucretia was chairing a women’s rights meeting in New York City, a mob organized by Isaiah Rynders burst out. Lucretia instructed the members of her group to join arms and walk out by pairs of two. Lucretia picked Rynders to walk out with her and to everyone’s dismay, he joined arms and walked out with her (Binder and Reimers 235). In the Spring of 1840 Lucretia traveled to Delaware with Daniel Neall and his new wife. Their intentions were to speak in Delaware against slavery. Word traveled throughout the states and angry people began to meet to throw stones at their carriage. Lucretia and Neall and his wife decided to go and visit a friend who lived in Delaware. At this house the angry mob appeared and took Neall away. They had all intentions of feathering and tarring him, but Lucretia followed them until they finally handed Neall over to her . This was a very historic event in American history (Binder and Reimers 237). Throughout the 1840’s James and Lucretia Mott were occasionally involved in a form of nonviolent direct action, that of moving escaped slaves form safe house to safe house which was known as the underground railroad. Miller McKim and William Still were central to this effort in Pennsylvania and ...