Thomas James (minister)

Thomas James (1804–1891) was a former slave who became an African Methodist Episcopal Zion minister, abolitionist, administrator and author. He was active in New York and Massachusetts with abolitionists, and served with the American Missionary Association and the Union Army during the American Civil War to supervise the contraband camp in Louisville, Kentucky. After the war, he held national offices in the AME Church and was a missionary to black churches in Ohio. While in Massachusetts, he challenged the railroad's custom of forcing blacks into second-class carriages and won a reversal of the rule in the State Supreme Court. He wrote a short memoir published in 1886.

Thomas James was born into slavery in Canajoharie, New York in 1804 and named Tom. He was the third child of four of his mother and never knew his father. His family was held by Asa Kimball. A younger sister died when Tom was a child; when he was only eight, he lost his mother, brother and older sister when Kimball sold them away. He never saw his mother or sister again. When Tom was seventeen, Kimball died and all his property, including the young man, was sold to a neighbor named Cromwell Bartlett. Bartlett soon traded Tom to George H. Hess, a wealthy farmer. Soon after that transfer, suffering ill treatment by Hess, Tom decided to escape and become a "freedom seeker".

He left at night and made his way west along the staked path of the future Erie Canal to Lockport. With help, he crossed the Niagara River to Canada and freedom. He stayed about three months until he thought return was safe.

Going to Rochester, Tom found a community of free blacks and more opportunity for work and education. He started working as a laborer. At nineteen Tom attended a church school to learn how to read and write. Gaining literacy opened the door to religion for him, and in 1823 he joined the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Society (AME Zion).Template:Life of Reverend Thomas James, by Himself

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