Remembering Martin Delany, Pittsburgh's abolitionist trailblazer

Martin Delany could have described himself by many titles: doctor, publisher, activist and diplomat, to name a few. But when he was being feted by British society at an 1860 event featuring many of the nation’s top scientists, he kept his introduction simple.

“I am a man,” he said.

The statement from a Black man so offended the American ambassadors in attendance that they stormed out, said Samuel Black, director of African-American programs at the Senator John Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh.

Delany was born free in 1812 in West Virginia. His family moved to Pittsburgh when he was a child.

Delany was one of three Black students accepted into Harvard Medical School in 1850, but all three were kicked out after a few weeks because of protests by white students. He still managed to get his education and set up shop as a doctor in Pittsburgh.

His ambitions did not stop there.

“Delany was a very diverse person, which was not unusual for a man of his time,” Black said. “People — especially African Americans — who were upwardly mobile didn’t necessarily specialize in just one thing.”

Even before becoming a doctor, Delany was politically active, fighting for the freedom of fellow Black Americans. In 1943, he established The Mystery, a Pittsburgh newspaper.

“He understood national and local politics,” Black said. “He was at the forefront of the movement for freedom and equality, both in Pittsburgh and nationally.”

‘Black people should be free, period’

In 1847, Delany and famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass went into business to publish Douglass’ North Star newspaper. However, Douglass and Delany didn’t always see eye to eye.

“Delany kind of drew a line in the sand,” Black said. “He was not compromising. His political ideals were that Black people should be free, period.”

This attitude could be seen in Delany’s reaction to “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” the famed anti-slavery novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe published in 1852. Many abolitionists, including Douglass, praised the hit novel for bringing attention to the horrors of slavery.

“What Delany said is she stole the stories of Black folks, and then wrote a novel,” Black said. “She had never been a part of the movement.”

Delany dreamed of creating a nation of freed slaves in Africa. This idea was not uncommon at the time — the American Colonization Society was a major political force and had established a colony of former enslaved people in Liberia. However, Delany opposed the ACS, and his goal differed from the society’s in key ways.

The ACS was founded by slave owners, Black said. Many abolitionists saw the organization’s goal as getting free Black Americans out of the country where they could no longer agitate for abolition.

Delany, by contrast, saw a new African nation as a way to fight for freedom back in America. He envisioned colonists starting their own cotton farms, trading with Britain and disrupting the American South’s economic relationship with its main trade partner.

“Delany felt that if they could compete, and maybe steal Great Britain as the primary importer, they would undermine the slave plantation system in America,” Black said. “He was coming up with an economic plan to fight slavery.”

In 1859, Delany traveled to Abeokuta in modern-day Nigeria to negotiate land deals for his new colony. He returned to the United States with plans to start recruiting colonists, but those plans changed when the Civil War broke out. Not only did the war make recruiting difficult, it also presented a more direct method of ending American slavery.

‘A very complicated man’

In 1865, Henry Highland Garnet — another esteemed Pittsburgh abolitionist — arranged a meeting between Delany and President Abraham Lincoln.

At the meeting, Delany proposed a standing African American army with African American officers, Black said. Lincoln was skeptical. Many white Americans were afraid of the idea of heavily armed and highly trained Black soldiers.

“Lincoln may have been a Northerner, he may have been the president of the Union, but he was still a white man,” Black said.

However, Lincoln did make Delany a major, the first Black field officer in the U.S. Army, despite his lack of military experience.

Delany was sent to South Carolina. By the time he got there, the war was nearly over. He settled there and worked for the Freedmen’s Bureau, the government agency in charge of providing for former slaves.

Delany did not receive a warm welcome in the South, according to Black. He may have shared their skin color, but former slaves saw him as a Northerner and government agent. His job required him to uphold government policies unpopular among former slaves — such as taking the land they had been given after the war and restoring it to its previous owners, former slaveholders.

“They saw Delany as a Northerner, and they felt that this was a stab in the back, in a sense, by the federal government,” Black said.

Delany’s frequent clashes with South Carolina’s Black residents occasionally turned physical. He once fled for his life and hid in a barn, only for the angry crowd to set the barn on fire.

Despite the opposition, Delany attempted several times to run for office, but was unsuccessful. He even campaigned on behalf of a Democratic gubernatorial candidate at a time when the party represented the interests of the former Confederacy.

“He was a very complicated man, at a very complicated time,” Black said.

In 1877, Delany attempted to restart his African colonization project, but this endeavor did not last long. In 1880, he retired from politics, moving to Ohio to be with his family. He died of tuberculosis in 1885.

While Douglass is widely known, Delany has been largely forgotten by many Americans.

Black would like to see that change. He believes Delany deserves his place in history alongside America’s great Black leaders.

“You know how people ask that question, if you could meet anyone from history, who would it be? For me that person is Martin Delany,” Black said. “I have so many questions I want to ask him.”