Alexander Crummell (1819-1898) was a pioneering African American pastor, professor, and advocate of Pan-Africanism and black nationalism. Born free in New York to abolitionist parents, he faced discrimination but became the first black student at Cambridge University in England. Crummell believed that racial solidarity and unity between people of African descent worldwide was needed to overcome challenges like slavery. He spent several years in Liberia as a missionary but struggled to realize his vision of an independent black nation. Throughout his life, Crummell advocated for racial pride, self-sufficiency, and separate black institutions like the American Negro Academy. Though facing setbacks, he was an influential voice in the Pan-African and black nationalist movements

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Alexander Crummell
Alexander Crummell (March 3, 1819, New York City,
September 10, 1898, Red Bank, New Jersey) was a pioneering
*Afrikan pastor, professor and Afrikan Nationalist.
*We of the New Afrikan Independence Movement spell "Afrikan" with a "k" because Afrikan
linguists originally used "k" to indicate the "c" sound in the English language. We use the term
"New Afrikan," instead of Black, to define ourselves as an Afrikan people who have been forcibly
transplanted to a new land and formed into a "new Afrikan nation" in North America. But our
struggle behind the walls did not begin in America.
Alexander Crummell

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Born to a former slave, Boston Crummell, and freeborn Charity Hicks,
Alexander Crummell was seemingly destined to become an abolitionist.
According to Crummell's own account, his paternal grandfather was an ethnic
Temne born in Sierra Leone, and was captured into slavery when he was around
13 years old.[1] Both parents were active abolitionists, and the first African
American newspaper, Freedom's Journal, was published within their home.
Boston Crummell also instilled in his son a sense of unity with those blacks still
living in Africa. His parents' influence and these early experiences within the
abolitionist movement shaped Crummell’s values, beliefs, and actions
throughout the rest of his life. For example, even as a boy in New York,
Crummell worked for the American Anti-Slavery Society.
Crummell began his formal education in the African Free School No. 2 and at
home with private tutors. He then attended the Canal Street High School. After graduating, Crummell,
along with his friend Henry Highland Garnet, attended the Noyes Academy in New Hampshire. The
school, however, was destroyed by a lynch mob and Crummell enrolled in the Oneida Institute. While
studying there, Crummell decided to become a priest within the Episcopalian faith, and pursued that end
with the same enthusiasm he had pursued the rest of his education. Unfortunately, Crummell was denied
admission to the General Theological Seminary solely because of his race. In spite of such discrimination,
Crummell went on to receive holy orders at the behest of several clergymen sympathetic to his position
and was ordained in 1842. As he struggled against ambivalence and low attendance, Crummell took a trip
to Philadelphia to petition an audience with the Bishop to argue for a large audience to preach his
message. Bishop Onderdonk replied that "I will receive you into this diocese on one condition: No negro
priest can sit in my church convention and no negro church must ask for representation there." Crummell
is said to have paused for a moment, made up his mind and said, "I will never enter your diocese on such
terms."[2]
Career
In 1847, Crummell traveled to England to raise money for his congregation at the Church of the Messiah.
While there, Crummell preached, spoke about abolitionism in the United States, and raised almost $2,000.
Crummell was also interested in attending either the University of Oxford or that at Cambridge, and when
such an opportunity presented itself, he grabbed it. From 1849 to 1853, Crummell studied at Queens'
College, Cambridge, sponsored by Benjamin Brodie, Wilberforce, Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, James
Anthony Froude and Thomas Babington Macaulay,[3][4] although he had to take his finals twice to
receive his degree.
Alexander Crummell

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During his time at the Cambridge, Crummell continued to travel around Britain and speak out about
slavery and the plight of the black people. Crummell formulated his most central belief for the
advancement of the African race, Pan-Africanism, during this epoch. Crummell believed that in order to
achieve their potential, the African race as a whole, including those in the Americas, the West Indies, and
Africa, needed to unify under the banner of race. Racial solidarity, to him, was the solution to slavery,
discrimination, and continued attacks on the African race. To that end, Crummell decided to move to
Africa to spread his message.
He arrived in Liberia in 1853, at the point in that country's history when Americo-Liberians had begun to
govern. Crummell came as a missionary of the American Episcopal Church, with the stated aim of
converting the native people. Though previously against colonization, experiences in Liberia changed his
mind and he became convinced of its benefits (see Civilizing mission). Crummell wove colonization into
his Pan-African ideology, preaching that "enlightened," or Christianized , Africans in the United States
and the West Indies had a duty to come back to Africa. There, they would help civilize and Christianize
the continent. When enough native Africans had been converted, they would take over converting the rest
of the population while those from America and the West Indies would continue to educate the people
and run a republican government. Crummell’s grand scheme never came to fruition, with interest in
colonization waning and the failure of "enlightened" blacks to perform the duty he had laid out for them.
While he did successfully serve as both a pastor and professor in Liberia, Crummell was never able to set
up the government and society he dreamed of. In 1873, he returned to the United States.
Once back on American soil, Crummell took on the task of running St. Mary’s Episcopal Mission. He
was rector of St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Washington, D. C. from 1875 to 1894. Despite prior
frustrations, he never stopped working for the racial solidarity he had advocated for so long. Throughout
his life, Crummell continued to work for black nationalism, self-help, and separate economic
development. He spent the last years of his life setting up the American Negro Academy, which opened in
1897. Alexander Crummell died in Red Bank, New Jersey in 1898.
Influence
Though most of his work never produced the intended results, Crummell was an important voice within
the abolition movement and a vocal leader of the Pan-African ideology. His achievements, which include
a college education, becoming a priest, and setting up the American Negro Academy, are nothing less
than impressive. His contributions to the academic world, via his sermons and written works, leave the
impression of a well-educated, well-spoken, and well-written black man who believed deeply and
fervently in the Pan-African idea and worked most of his life to achieve it. Crummell's legacy can be seen
not in his personal achievements, but in the influence he exerted on other black nationalists and Pan-
Africanists, such as Marcus Garvey, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and W. E. B. Du Bois. Du Bois paid tribute
to Crummell with a memorable essay entitled "Of Alexander Crummell," collected in his 1903 book, The
Souls of Black Folk. In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Alexander Crummell on his list of 100
Greatest African Americans.[5]
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Veneration
Crummell is honored with a feast day on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church (USA) on
September 10.
References
1. Moses (1988), p. 11
2. Du Bois, W.E.B The Souls of Black Folk pg 139.
3. Crummell, Alexander in Venn, J. & J. A., Alumni Cantabrigienses, Cambridge
University Press, 10 vols, 1922–1958.
4. Twigg, John A History of Queens' College, Cambridge, 1448-1986 (1987), pp. 268-71
5. Asante, Molefi Kete (2002). 100 Greatest African Americans: A Biographical
Encyclopedia. Amherst, New York. Prometheus Books. ISBN 1-57392-963-8.
 ilson eremiah Moses: "Alexander Crummell." American National Biography Online.
2000. Oxford University Press. 5 Feb 2008.
 Wilson Jeremiah Moses: Alexander Crummell: A Study of Civilization and Discontent.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.
 Rigsby, Gregory, U.. Alexander Crummell: Pioneer in the Nineteenth-Century Pan-
African Thought. New York: Greenwood Press, 1987.
 Wahle, Kathleen O'Mara. "Alexander Crummell: Black Evangelist and Pan-Negro
Nationalist." Phylon 29(1968): 388-395.
Alexander Crummell