Alexander Crummell
| Alexander Crummell | |
|---|---|
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| Born |
March 3, 1819 New York City, New York |
| Died | September 10, 1898 (aged 79) Red Bank, New Jersey |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Queens' College, Cambridge |
| Occupation | Minister, Professor |
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| Religion | Episcopal |
| Born | New York City |
| Died | Red Bank |
Alexander Crummell (March 3, 1819 - September 10, 1898) was a pioneering African-American minister, academic and African nationalist. Ordained as an Episcopal priest in the United States, Crummell went to England in the late 1840s to raise money for his church by lecturing about American slavery. Abolitionists supported his three years of study at Cambridge University, where Crummell developed concepts of pan-Africanism.
In 1853 Crummell moved to Liberia, where he worked to convert native Africans to Christianity and educate them, as well as to persuade American colonists of his ideas. He wanted to attract American blacks to Africa on a colonial, civilizing mission. Crummell lived and worked for 20 years in Liberia and appealed to American blacks to join him, but did not gather wide support for his ideas.
After returning to the United States in 1872, Crummell was called to St. Mary's Episcopal Mission in Washington, DC. In 1875 he and his congregation founded St. Luke's Episcopal Church, the first independent black Episcopal church in the city. They built a new church on 15th Street, NW, beginning in 1876, and celebrated their first Thanksgiving there in 1879. Crummell served as rector there until his retirement in 1894. The church was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1976.
Crummell was born in New York City to Charity Hicks, a free woman of color, and Boston Crummell, a former slave. According to Crummell's own account, his paternal grandfather was an ethnic Temne born in Sierra Leone, who was captured into slavery when he was around 13 years old. Both parents were active abolitionists, and allowed their home to be used to publish the first African-American newspaper, Freedom's Journal. Boston Crummell instilled in his son a sense of unity with Africans living in Africa. His parents' influence and these early experiences within the abolitionist movement shaped Crummell’s values, beliefs, and actions throughout the rest of his life. For example, even as a boy in New York, Crummell worked for the American Anti-Slavery Society.
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