March 3

Alexander Crummell

On March 3, 1819, Alexander Crummell, an Episcopalian minister, abolitionist, author and American scholar was born in New York City.

Crummell's parents who were abolitionists taught him early about their thoughts on freedom. This would be part of the foundation that would groom Crummell as an abolitionist in the fight for freedom of American slaves. In the late 1840's Crummell traveled to England and while there became a speaker on abolitionism. He attended and became the first African American graduate of Queens College, Cambridge in 1853. It was during this same year that he moved to Liberia as a missionary and would spend two decades introducing Liberians to Christianity and trying to get Americans to relocate to this country.

Upon returning to the United States, Crummell would continue his ministry and establish St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Washington, DC.  He also helped start the Conference of Church Workers Among Colored People and founded The American Negro Academy in 1897. Crummell died on September 10, 1898 in Red Bank, New Jersey at age 80.