William H. Yates

William H. Yates (died September 18, 1868) was an African-American abolitionist, writer, and the President of the first Convention of Colored Men.[1] He focused his writing in the form of articles and editorials in newspapers; along with responses about books and articles written on slavery or civil rights.

In contrast to common perception, Yates is not the author of Rights of Colored Men to Suffrage, Citizenship and Trial by Jury (1838), which addressed several topics that included the disenfranchisement of African Americans on the East Coast.[2][3] The William Yates who produced the treatise was a white abolitionist with no known ties to William H. Yates.[4]

  1. ^ Waldrep, Christopher (December 1, 2011). Jury Discrimination: The Supreme Court, Public Opinion, and a Grassroots Fight for Racial Equality in Mississippi. University of Georgia Press. p. 42. ISBN 9780820341941.
  2. ^ Sinha, Manisha (2016). The Slave's Cause: A History of Abolition. Yale University Press. pp. 317–318. ISBN 9780300181371.
  3. ^ Pratt, Lloyd (2016). The Strangers Book: The Human of African American Literature. University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. 32–33. ISBN 9780812247688.
  4. ^ "Introduction", Birthright Citizens, Cambridge University Press, 2018, pp. 1–15, doi:10.1017/9781316577165.002, ISBN 978-1-316-57716-5 p. 9.