Lewis Woodson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lewis Woodson (1806-78) was an educator, minister, writer, and abolitionist. He was an early leader in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Woodson started and helped to build other institutions within the free African American communities in Ohio and Western Pennsylvania prior to the Civil War.
Contents |
[edit] Origins
Lewis Woodson [1], the oldest child of Thomas and Jemima Woodson, was born in Greenbrier County, Virginia (now West Virginia) in January of 1806. Family oral history indicates that Thomas Woodson was the eldest child of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson, however, the account is disputed by Jeffersonian historians. [1] The family moved to Chillicothe, Ohio in 1820 or 1821. Soon the Woodsons helped establish an African Methodist Episcopal (AME) congregation in the town. The congregation was the first AME congregation west of the Allegheny Mountains to secure its own church. Woodson married Caroline Robinson, who was born in Virginia, and obtained a minister's license. In 1827 Lewis Woodson established the African Education and Benevolent Society in Chillicothe.
[edit] AME Conferences and Negro Conventions
In 1829 Woodson wrote a letter that was published by Freedom's Journal, an early African American newspaper. In the letter he denounced expatriation to Africa, but advocated 'colonization' in the United States. The Reverend Lewis Woodson served as secretary for an AME Conference in Hillsborough, Ohio (near Cincinnati) while Bishop Morris Brown presided. A month later in September of 1830, Woodson attended the first Negro Convention in Philadelphia at Mother Bethel AME, where Bishop Richard Allen (Reverend) presided. The dislocation of blacks from Cincinnati, Ohio was an important topic of this initial convention.
Settling in Pittsburgh, Woodson joined with John B. Vashon to establish the African Education Society there. As Secretary to the AME Ohio Conference of 1833, Woodson advanced a resolution urging the AME to establish or assist "...common schools, Sunday Schools and temperance societies..." It is the first resolution to urge the AME denomination to support education in such a fashion. Lewis Woodson filled a key role in the establishment of the Third or Ohio District of the AME denomination. Union Seminary, established near Columbus, Ohio in 1847, was a product of this work. Vashon and Woodson befriended Martin Delany, who would become a spokesman for blacks during the Civil War. In 1837 Lewis Woodson served as secretary for a group of African Americans, who created the Pittsburgh Memorial, a document that asserted that blacks should retain the voting right in Pennsylvania. [2] While blacks would lose the right to vote in the Commonwealth, Woodson's efforts were instrumental in securing public funding for the education of blacks. Woodson joined the Western District of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society.
[edit] As Augustine and as Father of Black Nationalism
Historian Floyd Miller wrote that Woodson utilized the pen name Augustine, and suggested that Woodson was the Father of Black Nationalism.[3] During a four year period (1837-1841), as "Augustine," Woodson wrote a series of letters that were published in the Colored American newspaper. These letters advocated initiatives independent of the benevolence of whites to create institutions, including churches, newspapers, and schools. Woodson/Augustine advocated preparation for the time when the multitudes of American slaves would gain freedom, and require social, organizational, and financial assistance. Unlike most black abolitionists, who altered positions, Woodson never advocated emigration to Africa or a slave uprising.
[edit] Establishing Wilberforce University
Along with Bishop Daniel Payne, Woodson served as one of the 4 blacks who joined the 24 member founding Board of Directors of Wilberforce University of Ohio[4] . The university was established in 1856 to provide collegiate education to African Americans. The actions of Payne and Woodson are particularly significant, since they were the first African Americans to help establish a historically black college. The first historically black college was established in Pennsylvania in 1854 and is now called Lincoln University, however no African Americans participated in its founding. In 1858 Woodson's youngest sister, Sarah Jane Woodson, a graduate of Oberlin College, became the first female to teach at Wilberforce and the first African American female to teach college. The AME Church assumed full responsibility for the continued success of Wilberforce in 1863. The AME Church at sold the property used by the Union Seminary to better steer its resources into Wilberforce University.
Lewis Woodson became a barber in Pittsburgh. He died in 1878. One of his obituaries confidently reported his work on the Underground Railroad. Historian Floyd Miller researched Woodson's life in the 1970s, finding that Woodson taught and mentored Martin Delany.
[edit] References
- ^ Byron W. Woodson Sr., A President in The Family, (Westport CT, Praeger, 2001) ,61
- ^ Eric Ledell Smith, "The Pittsburgh Memorial," Pittsburgh History, vol. 80, no. 3 (Fall 1997), 106-7
- ^ Floyd Miller, "The Father of Black Nationalism," Civil War History, vol. 17, no. 4 (December 1971)
- ^ Daniel Payne, Recollections of Seventy Years," (Salem, New Hampshire, Ayer Co. Publishers Inc., 1991), 226
[edit] Further reading
- Floyd Miller, The Search for Black Nationality, (Univ. of Ill. Press , 1975)
- Benjamin Quarles, Black Abolitionists, (Oxford Univ. Press, 1969)
- Byron W. Woodson Sr. , A President in the Family, ( Praeger, 2001)
- Eric Ledell Smith, "The Pittsburgh Memorial," Pittsburgh History, vol. 80, no. 3, Fall 1997)
- C. Peter Ripley (Editor) The Black Abolitionist Papers The United States, 1830-1846, (Univ. North Carolina Press, 1991)
