Type: Exhibition case

Name: African Americans in New Jersey before the Civil War

Detail: A large and vibrant African-American community lived in New Jersey before the Civil War. On the eve of the conflict, the black population was 25, 336 out of a total of 646,699. Years after the abolition of slavery, African Americans still lacked legal and political rights. The new state constitution of 1844 restricted voting to white male citizens. African Americans in New Jersey also faced poverty, job discrimination, and racism. The Fugitive Slave Bill subjected escapees from the South to deportation. During the tense period leading up to the conflict, African-American community leaders emerged to play important roles in the abolition movement and the Underground Railroad

Type: Exhibition caption

Detail: In spite of fugitive slave laws, many African Americans escaped from the South to New Jersey by the network of safe houses, routes, and sympathizers that constituted the Underground Railroad. One "conductor" was William Still, the much younger brother of Peter Still. William Still was born in New Jersey in 1821. He moved to Philadelphia in 1844 and joined the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society, where in a fourteen-year career, he assisted hundreds of runaway slaves. His experiences are recounted in The Underground Railroad (1876).