Alexander Crummell

Alexander Crummell was born in New York City in 1819 to Boston Crummell and Charity Hicks. Both of Crummell’s parents were free, though his father had been born into West African royalty, enslaved, and subsequently freed in adulthood. Crummell’s early education was at a Quaker school, and he later attended the Canal Street High School where he was able to learn Greek and Latin. He also briefly attended the Noyes Academy, a racially integrated school in New Hampshire founded by abolitionists, before the school was destroyed in an act of racist violence. Crummell then relocated to another abolitionist school, the Oneida Institute in Whitesboro, New York. From 1840-41 Crummell attended the Yale Divinity School, although he was barred from formal enrollment or participation in class. He was also denied entry to the General Theological Seminary in New York, but managed to study on his own to be ordained an Episcopal deacon in 1842 and later a priest in 1844. His first positions as deacon and priest were in Providence, Rhode Island and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. While in Philadelphia, he became actively involved in the abolitionist and Black suffrage movements.

In 1848 Crummell moved to the UK, where he obtained his bachelor's, becoming the first Black graduate of Cambridge. In 1853 he moved to Liberia and worked there as an Episcopal missionary for the next twenty years. While there he was also a professor at the College of Liberia. Crummell believed strongly in the back-to-Africa movement, and endorsed a vision of African-American colonization in Liberia to enlighten and civilize Africans and create a republic based on Christian morals. He published The Future of Africa: Being Addresses, Sermons, etc. Delivered in the Republic of Liberia on this topic while living in Liberia.

In 1873 Crummell moved to Washington, DC, where he founded St. Luke’s church and served as its rector for roughly twenty years. In 1883 he also founded the Conference of Church Workers Among Colored People in response to institutional endorsement of segregation. Following his retirement from St. Luke’s, he taught briefly at Howard University before founding the American Negro Academy, an elite institution for Black education, in 1897.

Crummell died in Point Pleasant, New Jersey in 1898. In 2023 he was awarded, along with James W. C. Pennington, an MA privatim degree from Yale.

The Negro Race Under a Curse: an Examination of Genesis IX, 25. London, UK: Wertheim, Macintosh & Hunt, 1852.

The Duty of a Rising Christian State to Contribute to the World's Well being and Civilization, and the Means by wWhich it may Perform the Same. London, UK: Werteim and Macintosh, 1856.

The Relations and Duties of Free Colored Men in America to Africa : a Letter to Charles B. Dunbar, M.D., Esq., of New York City Hartford, CT: Press of Case, Lockwood and Co., 1861.

The Future of Africa: Being Addresses, Sermons, Etc., Etc., Delivered in the Republic of Liberia. New York, NY: C. Scribner, 1862.

Emigration, an Aid to the Evangelization of Africa: a Sermon. Boston, MA: Press of T.R. Marvin & Son, 1865.

The Social Principle among a People and its Bearing on their Progress and Development. Washington DC: n.p., 1875.

Our National Mistakes and Remedy for Them. Preston, UK: H. Oakey, 1870.

Marriage and Divorce: A Sermon. Washington, DC: C. W. Brown, 1881.

The Greatness of Christ: And Other Sermons. New York, NY: T. Whittaker, 1882.

The Eulogy on Henry Highland Garnet, D.D. Presbyterian minister, Late Minister Resident of the U.S. to the Republic of Liberia. Washington, DC: n.p., 1882.

The Black Woman of the South , Her Neglects and Her Needs. Cincinnati, OH: Woman's Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 1883.

A Defence of the Negro Race in America : from the Assaults and Charges of Rev. J.L. Tucker, D.D., of Jackson, Miss. Washington, DC: Judd & Detweiler, 1883.

Common Sense in Common Schooling: A Sermon. Washington, DC: n.p., 1886.

The Race Problem in America. Washington, DC: William R. Morrison, 1889.

Africa and America: Addresses and Discourses. Springfield, MA: Willey & Co., 1891.

Look Within. Springfield, MA: Willey & Co., 1891.

Charitable Institutions in Colored Churches. Washington, DC: Press of R. L. Pendleton, 1892.

The Shades and the Lights of a Fifty Years' Ministry. Washington, DC: Press of R. L. Pendleton, 1894.

Incidents of Hope for the Negro Race in America. Washington, DC: Press of R. L. Pendleton, 1895.

The Solution of Problems: The Duty and Destiny of Man. Philadelphia, PA: Recorder Printers, 1898.

Civilization The Primal Need of the Race: The annual sermon at the Commencement of Wilberforce University. Washington, DC: The Academy, 1898.

Euology on the Life and Services of Hon. Frederick Douglass. s.l.: n.p., 189?.