Zam-Zam
Senator
One of the greatest men you perhaps never heard of.
Here is a brief biographical sketch of the man:
Crummell was born in New York of free black ancestry. He had a good general education, and though racial prejudice denied him entrance to General Theological Seminary, he was ordained in the Episcopal Church (deacon, 1842; priest, 1844). Fund-raising in England for his new black congregation in New York brought him a place at Queens College, Cambridge, where he graduated in 1853. He then went as a Protestant Episcopal missionary to Liberia, taking citizenship and combining pastoral work with the headship of schools in Monrovia and in Maryland county. From 1862 to 1866 he was professor of philosophy and English at Liberia College, a stormy period; and from 1867 to 1873, he lived at the Caldwell settlement, where he built a church and school, established an educational outreach for indigenous people, and served two other mission stations. Crummell influenced Liberian intellectual and religious life as preacher, prophet, social analyst, and educationalist, proclaiming a special place for Africa, with its God-given moral and religious potential, in the history of redemption. He wanted Liberia to be marked by democratic institutions, flourishing arts and letters, commerce, and law, and to that end Christian teaching was necessary. His enthusiasms included agricultural development, opening the interior to evangelization and trade, women’s education, and public libraries. He helped reconstruct the Protestant Episcopal Mission as a Liberian church. In his vision, African Americans had a particular responsibility for Africa, but as a “pure black” (as he frequently asserted), he sought to identify with the interests of the indigenous population, opposing government attempts to concentrate power and resources in the mulatto community. In 1873, fearing his life was in danger from the mulatto ascendancy, he returned to the United States. He was rector of St. Luke’s, Washington, D.C., until 1894 and taught at Howard University from 1895 to 1897. He continued his work for African American Christian scholarship and African redemption and founded the American Negro Academy in 1897.
Crummell, Alexander (1819-1898) | History of Missiology (bu.edu)
A more detailed portrait of the man and his life here:
Alexander Crummell, Episcopalian Priest, Cambridge University Graduate | The New York Public Library (nypl.org)
Crummell died in 1898. In 1903, W.E.B. Du Bois unveiled his "The Souls of Black Folk...Chapter 12 of this book was an essay entitled "Of Alexander Crummell, and was a fitting tribute to the man. One paragraph, near the end, has always stayed with me:
He did his work,—he did it nobly and well; and yet I sorrow that here he worked alone, with so little human sympathy. His name to-day, in this broad land, means little, and comes to fifty million ears laden with no incense of memory or emulation. And herein lies the tragedy of the age: not that men are poor,—all men know something of poverty; not that men are wicked,—who is good? not that men are ignorant,—what is Truth? Nay, but that men know so little of men.
Amen to that.
For anyone interested, The Souls of Black Folk is available in its entirety, free of charge, here:
The Souls of Black Folk, by W. E. B. Du Bois (gutenberg.org)
Here is a brief biographical sketch of the man:
Crummell was born in New York of free black ancestry. He had a good general education, and though racial prejudice denied him entrance to General Theological Seminary, he was ordained in the Episcopal Church (deacon, 1842; priest, 1844). Fund-raising in England for his new black congregation in New York brought him a place at Queens College, Cambridge, where he graduated in 1853. He then went as a Protestant Episcopal missionary to Liberia, taking citizenship and combining pastoral work with the headship of schools in Monrovia and in Maryland county. From 1862 to 1866 he was professor of philosophy and English at Liberia College, a stormy period; and from 1867 to 1873, he lived at the Caldwell settlement, where he built a church and school, established an educational outreach for indigenous people, and served two other mission stations. Crummell influenced Liberian intellectual and religious life as preacher, prophet, social analyst, and educationalist, proclaiming a special place for Africa, with its God-given moral and religious potential, in the history of redemption. He wanted Liberia to be marked by democratic institutions, flourishing arts and letters, commerce, and law, and to that end Christian teaching was necessary. His enthusiasms included agricultural development, opening the interior to evangelization and trade, women’s education, and public libraries. He helped reconstruct the Protestant Episcopal Mission as a Liberian church. In his vision, African Americans had a particular responsibility for Africa, but as a “pure black” (as he frequently asserted), he sought to identify with the interests of the indigenous population, opposing government attempts to concentrate power and resources in the mulatto community. In 1873, fearing his life was in danger from the mulatto ascendancy, he returned to the United States. He was rector of St. Luke’s, Washington, D.C., until 1894 and taught at Howard University from 1895 to 1897. He continued his work for African American Christian scholarship and African redemption and founded the American Negro Academy in 1897.
Crummell, Alexander (1819-1898) | History of Missiology (bu.edu)
A more detailed portrait of the man and his life here:
Alexander Crummell, Episcopalian Priest, Cambridge University Graduate | The New York Public Library (nypl.org)
Crummell died in 1898. In 1903, W.E.B. Du Bois unveiled his "The Souls of Black Folk...Chapter 12 of this book was an essay entitled "Of Alexander Crummell, and was a fitting tribute to the man. One paragraph, near the end, has always stayed with me:
He did his work,—he did it nobly and well; and yet I sorrow that here he worked alone, with so little human sympathy. His name to-day, in this broad land, means little, and comes to fifty million ears laden with no incense of memory or emulation. And herein lies the tragedy of the age: not that men are poor,—all men know something of poverty; not that men are wicked,—who is good? not that men are ignorant,—what is Truth? Nay, but that men know so little of men.
Amen to that.
For anyone interested, The Souls of Black Folk is available in its entirety, free of charge, here:
The Souls of Black Folk, by W. E. B. Du Bois (gutenberg.org)
