Alexander Crummell

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Alexander Crummell

Alexander Crummell (born March 3, 1819 in New York City , † September 10, 1898 in Red Bank, New Jersey ) was an African-American missionary of the Anglican Church in Liberia and Sierra Leone , a university teacher in Monrovia and is venerated as a saint of the Anglican Church.

biography

Childhood and school days

Crummell's ancestors came to America as slaves from Sierra Leone , while Alexander Crummell came from a family in the United States who had risen early to the middle class and who worked as abolitionists in New York . Boston Crummell, his father, was the editor of the African American newspaper and the Freedom's Journal . As a child, Alexander Crummell received intensive contact with the idea of ​​abolitionism that would shape his future life. He enjoyed an extensive school education, in addition to regular classes at the African Free School No. 2 the parents hired house tutors and private tutors. Alexander Crummell then attended Canal Street High School and graduated from college.

Education

His parents made it possible for him to attend the Noyes Academy , one of the most progressive universities in New Hampshire at the time , which was also ideologically committed to the ideas of the abolitionists. Crummell had chosen to become a priest of the Anglican Church. His efforts to continue his studies at a seminary in the United States, however, were rejected by the relevant bodies and even by Bishop Henry Ustick Onderdonk , with reference to his origin. Crummell therefore went to England in 1847 in the hope that the Anglican Church there would approve his training. Crummel stayed in Great Britain for almost six years , he was ordained priest at the prestigious Queens College in Cambridge in 1853 and often traveled to political events as a guest speaker to draw attention to the problems of slavery in the USA and the Caribbean.

" Tall, frail, and black, he stood, with simple dignity and an unmistakable air of good breeding. I began to feel the fineness of his character, his calm courtesy, the sweetness of his strength, and his fair blending of the hope and truth of life. "

- William Edward Burghardt Du Bois

Liberia and Sierra Leone

The Anglican Church made it possible to go as a missionary to Liberia and Sierra Leone in 1856 . To his horror, he had to quickly realize that the previously believed redemption of the locals through Christianization threatened to fail in Liberia as well. He recognized that the cause was that the ruling class of the Ameriko-Liberians had no interest in sharing their privileges with the locals. Crummell gave up his work in the mission stations in the Liberian hinterland and became a university professor in Monrovia , where he passed on his ideas of pan-Africanism , which he had already developed in England, to his Liberian students. In the early 1870s, Crummell was ostracized because of his always critical and distant attitude to Liberian society and had to fear for his life.

Return to the USA

Finally, he returned in 1873 back to the US, where he at one from the American Civil War hit refined society that filled him with renewed confidence. He was assigned the parish of St. Luke's Episcopal Church of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington and served there from 1875 to 1894. In the last years of his life he was still a patron of the American Negro Academy and died in Red Bank, New Yersey in 1898 at the age of 79 years.

Honors

  • Alexander Crummell's merits were not fully appreciated until the 20th century , when the Episcopal Church of the United States added Crummell to its calendar of saints on September 10th as his feast day.
  • Crummell belongs to the group of the "100 greatest African Americans".

literature

  • Frederick Quinn: African saints. Saints, martyrs, and holy people from the continent of Africa . Crossroad, New York 2002, ISBN 0-8245-1971-X , Alexander Crummell, pp. 235 .
  • Gregory U. Rigsby: Alexander Crummell, pioneer in 19th-century Pan-African thought . Greenwood Press, New York 1987, ISBN 0-313-25570-9 , pp. 231 .

Web links

Commons : Alexander Crummell  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Paul Finkelman: Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the Present: From the Age of Segregation to the Twenty-first Century Five-volume Set , Oxford University Press, USA, 2009.
  2. ^ John Twigg: A history of Queens' College, Cambridge 1448-1986 . Woodbridge 1987, ISBN 0-85115-488-3 , pp. 268-271 .
  3. ↑ Alexander Crummell. In: The Episcopal Church (online portal). Archived from the original on July 5, 2010 ; accessed on December 11, 2010 (English).
  4. ↑ Molefi Kete Ashanti: One hundred greatest African Americans . Prometheus Books, New York 2002, ISBN 1-57392-963-8 , Crummell, Alexander.
personal data
SURNAME Crummell, Alexander
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Missionary in Africa
DATE OF BIRTH March 3, 1819
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City
DATE OF DEATH September 10, 1898
Place of death Red Bank, New Yersey