James McCune Smith
James McCune Smith (1813-1865) was born in slavery in New York City of a slave mother who had been brought north by her owner. His mother apparently emancipated herself about the time of Smith's birth, but Smith was technically a slave until New York State ended slavery in 1827. In spite of his technical status as a slave, Smith got an excellent elementary education at Manhattan's African Free School, but could go no further because of his color. The Rector of his church, however, seeing the boy's potential, raised the funds to send him to Scotland where he earned, in five years, AB, MA, and MD degrees. He returned to the United States in 1837 better educated than most white doctors, established a practice in New York City, and immediately became involved in the abolition movement. The back room of his pharmacy in Manhattan became a busy stop on the Underground Railroad.
At a festive "welcome home" celebration, the chair of the meeting hailed the young Dr. Smith as "an ornament to your country—an advocate for the oppressed—a scourge to the oppressor, and a benefactor to mankind." Smith would spend the remaining 28 years of his life in fulfilling that expectation. He had helped create the Glasgow Emancipation Society while in Scotland; he arrived home in New York, in September, 1837, and joined the four-year-old American Abolition Society before the end of the year. In the following spring, at the annual meeting of the Society, Smith was one of five featured speakers and the only black speaker.
The ultimate goal was abolition, but Smith and other black leaders were at least equally concerned with discrimination in the North, a matter of little concern to William Lloyd Garrison and other white abolition leaders. Smith charged at one point "that American Abolitionists do not, as organizations, treat black men as men."
Nevertheless, Smith supported the abolition cause with, among other things, a regular column in Frederick Douglass' Paper. His interest in statistics provided factual support for the abolition cause. When Senator Calhoun tried to argue that black people were better off under slavery and cited census statistics to show higher percentages of mentally incompetent black residents in northern states, Smith turned to statistics and pointed out that the reported numbers of incompetent black residents in the districts cited were often higher than the total black population of those districts and the census was obviously relying on false data. Smith also provided statistics to show that the death rate among slaves was higher than among free blacks. "What mockery is it," Smith exclaimed, "for men to talk of the kindness of the masters in taking care of aged slaves, when death has relieved them of so large a share of the burden!"
When Garrison's American Abolition Society urged that voters withdraw from the polls, Smith led a fierce opposition and worked in 1855 to create a New York Abolition Society: "No longer content with the declaration that we are against slavery," he wrote to Gerrit Smith, "we announce our intention to rally a body of men who, under the guidance of heaven, shall abolish it. . .." Later that year a Convention of Radical Abolitionists assembled in Syracuse and James McCune Smith was chosen to preside. It was the first time a black American had presided at a national political convention.
Uniquely, perhaps, in the abolition movement. Smith looked beyond the end of slavery to the future of black citizens in America. Harvard scholar John Stauffer, who has edited and published much of Smith's writing, says that Smith, in effect, "envisioned a Zion in America, where blacks, 'raised up by God,' could create a new city upon a hill." Smith believed that only when black Americans were able to participate freely in the building of that city, could it become for all its inhabitants the shining beacon the founders had envisioned.
Date of death: November 17, 1865
Address of place of burial: Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn, 833 Jamaica Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11208.
Written by Christopher L. Webber, Nominator
At a festive "welcome home" celebration, the chair of the meeting hailed the young Dr. Smith as "an ornament to your country—an advocate for the oppressed—a scourge to the oppressor, and a benefactor to mankind." Smith would spend the remaining 28 years of his life in fulfilling that expectation. He had helped create the Glasgow Emancipation Society while in Scotland; he arrived home in New York, in September, 1837, and joined the four-year-old American Abolition Society before the end of the year. In the following spring, at the annual meeting of the Society, Smith was one of five featured speakers and the only black speaker.
The ultimate goal was abolition, but Smith and other black leaders were at least equally concerned with discrimination in the North, a matter of little concern to William Lloyd Garrison and other white abolition leaders. Smith charged at one point "that American Abolitionists do not, as organizations, treat black men as men."
Nevertheless, Smith supported the abolition cause with, among other things, a regular column in Frederick Douglass' Paper. His interest in statistics provided factual support for the abolition cause. When Senator Calhoun tried to argue that black people were better off under slavery and cited census statistics to show higher percentages of mentally incompetent black residents in northern states, Smith turned to statistics and pointed out that the reported numbers of incompetent black residents in the districts cited were often higher than the total black population of those districts and the census was obviously relying on false data. Smith also provided statistics to show that the death rate among slaves was higher than among free blacks. "What mockery is it," Smith exclaimed, "for men to talk of the kindness of the masters in taking care of aged slaves, when death has relieved them of so large a share of the burden!"
When Garrison's American Abolition Society urged that voters withdraw from the polls, Smith led a fierce opposition and worked in 1855 to create a New York Abolition Society: "No longer content with the declaration that we are against slavery," he wrote to Gerrit Smith, "we announce our intention to rally a body of men who, under the guidance of heaven, shall abolish it. . .." Later that year a Convention of Radical Abolitionists assembled in Syracuse and James McCune Smith was chosen to preside. It was the first time a black American had presided at a national political convention.
Uniquely, perhaps, in the abolition movement. Smith looked beyond the end of slavery to the future of black citizens in America. Harvard scholar John Stauffer, who has edited and published much of Smith's writing, says that Smith, in effect, "envisioned a Zion in America, where blacks, 'raised up by God,' could create a new city upon a hill." Smith believed that only when black Americans were able to participate freely in the building of that city, could it become for all its inhabitants the shining beacon the founders had envisioned.
Date of death: November 17, 1865
Address of place of burial: Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn, 833 Jamaica Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11208.
Written by Christopher L. Webber, Nominator