The establishment of separate black churches helped consolidate northern opposition to slavery. In Philadelphia, two African American ministers Richard Allen and Absalom Jones played critical roles. Allen's church, known as "Mother Bethel," the first African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E) Church in the United States, sheltered hundreds of runaway slaves. Jones attacked slavery from his pulpit at St. Thomas African Episcopal Church. In 1799 he petitioned the House of Representatives to repeal the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793. Although without success, Jones argued, "in the Constitution and the Fugitive Bill, no mention is made of Black people or Slaves, therefore if the Bill of Rights...(is) of any validity, we beseech that as we are men, we may be admitted to partake of the Liberties and unalienable Rights therein held forth."

Ambrose Headen, born 1822, enslaved in North Carolina and Alabama.

Once free, former slaves remade their lives. Many worked hard to raise money to purchase family members still in slavery or to help further their escape. While savoring new experiences, they discovered the extent to which bigotry prevailed in northern society. Obstacles existed for them to find work and to secure satisfactory housing. Few, however, longed for their old lives. "Through the mercy of God," one former slave relished, "he can hold up his hands and pronounce the sentence, 'I am a Freeman!'" During the Civil War many African Americans joined the Federal forces to fight for slavery's destruction.