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= 1840 New York State Convention of Colored Citizens =

The 1840 New York State Convention of Colored Citizens was a colored convention held from August 18th-20th at the First African Baptist Society of Albany church in Albany, NY. The convention gathered African-Americans from New York City, Albany, Troy, Schenectady, and various other places in New York State to discuss their political standing. Multiple committees were formed over the course of the convention to write speeches and establish the goals of the convention, create petitions and gather signatures before bringing them to the State Legislature, and manage the budget.

Convention Proceedings
After defining the rules of the convention, the Business Committee set forth the first resolution, a call to remove specific language from the New York State Constitution that disenfranchised people based on their skin color. The resolution was eventually, after some debate, withdrawn on the grounds that the attendees of the convention lacked the political power to enact that change. Most other resolutions made at the meeting were concerned with appointing committees to do various things, like collect demographic data on the delegates present and write petitions, though the majority of the convention was focused on the right to vote. Newspaper reports on the convention state that prominent members of the local Whig party were in attendance for the entirety of the meeting.

Final Address
President of the Convention Austin Stewart, of Rochester, NY, delivered the final address of the convention. He argued for the removal of the clause in the state constitution that would require people of color to own land before they could vote. He also implored the listeners to consider that, throughout the state, people of color were engaged in the same activities as white people: religious worship, clubs devoted to reading and literacy, and a want to pursue higher education. Stewart identified the plight of black people in America as similar to other instances of disenfranchisement and oppression in Ireland, Greece, India, and the native people in America. In closing, he evoked the Declaration of Independence to call on voters to change the state constitution and grant the right to vote to people of color.