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Showing posts with the label abolitionist

Anna Murray-Douglass

(1813 – August 4, 1882) Anna Murray-Douglass was an American  abolitionist , member of the  Underground Railroad , and the first wife of American social reformer and statesman  Frederick Douglass , from 1838 to her death.  Anna Murray was born in  Denton, Maryland , to Bambar(r)a  and Mary Murray.  Unlike her seven older brothers and sisters, who were born in slavery, Anna Murray and her younger four siblings were born free,  her parents having been  manumitted  just a month before her birth.  A resourceful young woman, by the age of 17 she had established herself as a laundress and housekeeper.  Her laundry work took her to the docks, where she met Frederick Douglass,  who was then working as a  caulker . Murray's freedom made Douglass believe in the possibility of his own. When he decided to escape slavery in 1838, Murray encouraged and helped him by providing Douglass with some sailor's clothing her ...

Thomas L. Jennings

(1791–1856) was an  African-American   tradesman  and  abolitionist  in in  New York City ,  New York . He was a  free black  who operated a tailoring and  dry-cleaning  business, and in 1821 was the  first African American  to be granted a  patent . Jennings became active in working for his race and civil rights for the black community. In 1831, he was selected as assistant secretary to the First Annual Convention of the People of Color in  Philadelphia ,  Pennsylvania , which met in June 1831. He helped arrange legal defense for his daughter,  Elizabeth Jennings , in 1854 when she challenged a private streetcar company's segregation of seating and was arrested. She was defended by the young  Chester Arthur , and won her case the next year. With two other prominent black leaders, Jennings organized the  Legal Rights Association  in 1855 in New York, which raised challenges to discr...

Paul Robeson

Paul Robeson was a famous African-American athlete, singer, actor, and advocate for the civil rights of people around the world. He rose to prominence in a time when segregation was legal in the United States, and Black people were being lynched by racist mobs, especially in the South. Born on April 9, 1898 in Princeton, New Jersey, Paul Robeson was the youngest of five children. His father was a runaway slave who went on to graduate from Lincoln University, and his mother came from an abolitionist Quaker family. Robeson's family knew both hardship and the determination to rise above it. His own life was no less challenging. In 1915, Paul Robeson won a four-year academic scholarship to Rutgers University. Despite violence and racism from teammates, he won 15 varsity letters in sports (baseball, basketball, track) and was twice named to the All-American Football Team. He received the Phi Beta Kappa key in his junior year, belonged to the Cap & Skull Honor Society, and gradu...