02/03/2026
“To be at the will of another, to be owned like a cow or horse, and liable at any moment to (be sold) to the highest bidder, to be transported to a distant part of the country leaving the dearest relatives behind; to be, in fine, ground down mentally and physically by the untold curses of slavery, may be a very pretty thing to the masters of the "peculiar institution," but it is death to the slaves."
Rev. Leonard A. Black, The Life and Sufferings of Leonard Black, A Fugitive from Slavery Written By Himself, 1847
Rev. Black was called to the Concord pulpit on this day, February 2, 1851. Once in office, he updated his narrative to provide more detail of his bo***ge and to include a few sermons. In the updated 1851 edition, he includes his position as Pastor of Concord Baptist Church on the cover.
"Mr. Bradford, whenever he was going to whip me, used to put my head through the fence so as my body would be on one side and my head on the other....You see he had been a professor of religion, and thus to cruelize a child in this way proved his inhumanity. My Christian friends, I beseech you to not become backsliders, especially slaveholding Christians, for the terrible effects of backsliding, slaveholding Christianity are awfully developed in my history."
Rev. Leonard A. Black, Sketch of The Life of Rev. Leonard A. Black, Pastor of the Concord Street Baptist Church, Brooklyn. Formerly a slave, written by himself with abstracts from his sermons, etc. Brooklyn, 1851
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Images:
Clipping: New York Daily Herald, Sun Feb 2 1851
Black, Leonard. Sketch of the life of Rev. Leonard Black. Brooklyn, Printed for the author, 1851.
Black, Leonard. The life and sufferings of Leonard Black, a fugitive from slavery. [Providence, R.I.: L. Black, 1847]
