From Slavery To Glory

The early history of Aurora, Illinois, is tied closely to issues of race and equality. The city had a reputation as radically abolitionist and had a number of stops on the Underground Railroad. Frederick Douglass, the great orator and abolitionist, twice spoke here. By 1850, Aurora had its first "Free Black" residents. In 1854, the city hosted a congressional convention that helped establish the anti-slavery platform of the newly formed Republican Party. At the same time, Aurora struggled to square the Jeffersonian dream of equality and justice for all people with the converging religious, scientific and social pronouncements on racial issues. Piecing together the fragments of historical records from individuals, local churches, social clubs and contemporary accounts in the local press, and using the manuscript census and local City Directories to build essential demographic data, Dennis Buck has created the first in depth study of the distinctive influences of African Americans during these crucial formative years of Aurora's history. The result is a portrait of a city conflicted over its traditional idealism and the reality of its beliefs.