I Claim the Rights of Man

Reverend Henry McNeal Turner was an African Methodist Episcopal minister and one of the greatest defender of black American rights after the Civil War. During the Reconstruction, he was elected as a state representative of Georgia, where he served until being forced out by anti-black Senators. In response, he gave this powerful 1868 speech which denounced the individuals who were so cowardly they would reject a man legally elected on wholly fallacious grounds.