How did Black America free itself?

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Never, until 1865, could any Black person feel safe, or feel that their families were safe, from white kidnappers and slave-catchers. No matter where a free Black person lived, North or South, even sometimes in Canada, they were always in danger of being kidnapped and sold into slavery.

In 1793, the U.S. Congress made it a crime to help any fugitive slave, anywhere in the United States. This law was made even more harsh in 1850.

In December 1799, over seventy free Black Philadelphians, led by two prominent Black ministers, the Reverend Richard Allen and the Reverend Absalom Jones, submitted a petition to the U.S. House of Representatives, asking for some legal protection against kidnappers and slave-catchers. Congress bluntly refused to give free Black people even the slightest protection from these kidnappers.

And so, nine years years later, the same Reverend Richard Allen, possibly the most famous Black man in the United States, was himself almost kidnapped back into slavery, in the city of Philadelphia.

In 1808, Rev. Allen was found by a slave-catcher, in Philadelphia, who tried to take him back into slavery. Only because the Rev. Allen was famous, only because he was well-known by the judges, and only because he could afford to hire lawyers, he was saved.

So, with the entire white power structure defending slavery...

...How did Black America free itself, a little bit under 60 years later?
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