From NKAA, Notable Kentucky African Americans Database (main entry)
Convention of Colored Republicans (or Colored Border State Convention)
In 1868, a call was made by African American Republican leaders from Maryland, Delaware, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri, for the Convention of Colored Republicans. The meeting was held in Baltimore, Maryland, on August 4, 1868. The initial purpose of the meeting was to organize African American men in the border states for the fight for equal rights. The call came as a result of the dissatisfaction toward the Chicago Convention that had not given African American men the right to take part in the deliberations. Chicago Convention members had "remembered the rights of the loyal citizens of the so-called reconstructed states."The Convention of Colored Republicans, which continued after the first meeting in 1868, was a national organization with state branches that included New York, Wisconsin, Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Kansas, South Carolina, Ohio, and Illinois. The Colored Republican Convention in Kentucky was held in Frankfort, KY, in 1870, with almost 100 counties represented. A national convention was held in Washington, D.C. in 1888 to discuss the political and social conditions of all African Americans and the rights and privileges of citizenship. Chapters of the Convention of Colored Republicans were still active in the 1930s.
For more see "A call has been issued...," The Daily News and Herald, 6/19/1868, issue 143, col. A; and a quotation from "Convention of Border State Colored Men," The New York Times, 6/12/1868, p. 5. For more about the Chicago Convention, see The American Annual Cyclopedia and Register of Important Events of the Year 1868, vol. 8, by D. Appleton and Company [available at Google Books]; "Colored Republican Convention in Kentucky," Bangor Daily Whig & Courier, 3/03/1870, issue 53, col. D.; and A Colored Convention," Oshkosh Daily Northwestern, 12/10/1888, p. 2.