Throughout the 1850s, New York’s black leaders tended to congregate in the backroom of Dr. James McCune Smith’s pharmacy at 55 West Broadway. Many of them, including Philip Bell, Henry Highland Garnet and Albro Lyons, my great-great-granduncle — had attended the Mulberry Street School, an institution for teaching African-American children, in the late 1820s, and remained close friends. Some of the men were ministers, others doctors and pharmacists; still others ran newspapers or operated boarding houses. But despite their material comfort, they staunchly stood at the vanguard of the fight for black civil rights.
They were active participants in national issues like abolitionism and party politics but also attended to the increasingly vulnerable status of blacks in Gotham. In March 1855, one of them, the Rev. J.W.C. Pennington, published a notice in the newspaper Frederick Douglass’ Paper informing visiting “colored ladies and gentlemen” that if they encountered trouble on the city’s street cars they were to call immediately upon him or Dr. Smith, and provided Smith’s address.
Black Elites and the Draft Riots
No comments:
Post a Comment