Alexander Crummell

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Alexander Crummell (1819 – September 10, 1898) was an African American Episcopalian priest, missionary, and teacher.

Born in New York City, he was ordained in the Diocese of Massachusetts in 1844, but he struggled to be accepted due to his race. In 1844 he established a small mission in Philadelphia. He soon became involved in politics. This included the campaign for equal suffrage and the abolition of slavery. Facing mounting opposition, he traveled to England, where he attended school at Cambridge. He then traveled to Liberia to work as a missionary among the repatriated slaves who had gone there.

During the American Civil War, he traveled the United States to encourage blacks to join him in Liberia, but ultimately he left his mission in Africa and returned to work in the United States. When some bishops proposed a separate missionary district for black parishes, he organized a group which is now known as the Union of Black Episcopalians to fight the proposal. In 1897 he was an important figure in the establishment of the American Negro Academy. He died in 1898 in Red Bank, New Jersey.

He was a major influence on black nationalists and Pan-Africanists, such as Marcus Garvey, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and W. E. B. Du Bois. W. E. B. Du Bois paid tribute to Crummell with a memorable essay entitled "Of Alexander Crummell," in the Twelfth Chapter of his The Souls of Black Folk.