1856 – Senator Charles Sumner Attacked for Anti-Slavery Speech

While not Black himself, Senator Charles Sumner\’s brutal beating on May 21, 1856, by pro-slavery Congressman Preston Brooks has major significance in Black history. Two days prior, Sumner had delivered a passionate anti-slavery speech condemning the Kansas-Nebraska Act and its authors. Brooks entered the Senate chamber and beat Sumner nearly to death with a cane. The attack stunned the nation and intensified the sectional conflict leading up to the Civil War. For abolitionists and Black Americans, Sumner’s beating symbolized the violent lengths to which the pro-slavery establishment would go to silence dissent. It also made Sumner a martyr for the anti-slavery cause. May 21 is remembered as a flashpoint that exposed the brutality embedded in American politics and underscored how deep the stakes were for Black freedom in the U.S.