Martin Delany: Father of Black Nationalism

According  the docuement Two Conceptions of Black Nationalism: Martin Delany on the Meaning of Black Political Solidarity by Tommie Shelby; Shelby says that Black nationalism, as an ideology and philosophy is one, of the oldest and most enduring traditions in American political thught.

Shelby also says the Black nationalist advocate such things as black self-determination, racial solidarity and group self-reliance, various forms of  racial seperation, pride in historic achievements of those of African descent, a concerted effort to overcome racial self-hate and to instill black self-love, militant resistance to anitblack racism, the development and preservation of a distinctive black ethnocultural identity, and the recognization of Africa as the true homeland of those who are racially black.







Who is Martin Delany?  Martin Robison Delany was an African-American abolitionist, journalist, physician, and writer, arguably the first proponent of American black nationalism. He was one of the first three blacks admitted to Harvard Medical School. Martin Delnay was born May 6, 1812 in Charles Town, West Virgina to Pati and Samuel Delany. Although his father Samuel was enslaved, his mother was a free woman. Both sets of Martin Delany's grandparents were African.








Delany played an important role in the anti-slavery movement from before the Civil War until afterward, and is known as the "Father of Black Nationalism."
Delany, for much of his life, championed emigration of blacks as a way of achieving equality, first to Central or South America, and later to Africa.
"Delany argued that blacks should leave because in order to achieve their rights, they had to form a majority in society," said Richard Blackett, the Andrew Jackson professor of history at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn.





 When his mother, Pati, taught him and his siblings to read and write, they were cited for violating state laws against literacy instruction for black children. Mrs. Delany quickly moved the family to Chambersburg, Pa., 130 miles east of Pittsburgh near the Maryland border, where young Martin could continue his studies without interference. In 1831, at age 19, he headed for Pittsburgh, walking the entire way.When he arrived here, he became a student at a school operated by the Rev. Lewis Woodson of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Rev. Woodson, who would go on to help establish Wilberforce University, was a strong advocate of black economic independence and was active in the Underground Railroad, which helped slaves escape to freedom in Canada.



Delany was soon involved in the Underground Railroad himself, and later established an abolitionist newspaper, The Mystery. It was published for four years in Pittsburgh, and as one of the only papers to survive a devastating fire in 1845 that destroyed a third of the city, it is still cited by historians of the period.
He also was trained in medicine by two of the leading white physicians of the city, and by 1837, ran this ad in the Pittsburgh Business Directory: "Delany, Martin R., Cupping, Leeching and bleeding."
It was a year after the great fire that Douglass came to the city from his base in Rochester, N.Y., to recruit Delany as co-editor of The North Star.




They never worked in an office together. Instead, Delany went on a "western tour" to Ohio and Michigan to recruit subscribers, and sent a series of travelogue-style letters that were printed in The North Star.
In one of them, he recounted how he and a companion were chased by a white mob in Marseilles, Ohio, northwest of Columbus. Retreating to their hotel, they watched as the mob started a bonfire and threatened their lives.
"Then came the most horrible howling and yelling, cursing and blasphemy, every disparaging, reproachful, degrading, vile and vulgar epithet that could be conceived by the most vitiated imaginations," Delany wrote, "which bedlam of shocking disregard was kept up from nine until one o'clock at night ...With the hotel's proprietor refusing to let the mob in, Delany was able to wait the crisis out and slip away the next day.By the end of his tour, it was already clear that Delany and Douglass were about to part ways on The North Star. Robert Levine, a University of Maryland English professor who wrote a book about the two men, said that by the late 1840s, Delany was accustomed to being a leader, but "as co-editor of The North Star, he was suddenly cast in Douglass' shadow."





The decisive break came when Delany began to advocate black emigration at a time when  Fredrick Douglass was still preaching the need for free blacks to continue the anti-slavery battle in America. In 1850 played a big part in his anger toward the country of his birth.That year, he was accepted into Harvard Medical School to complete his physician's training. He was one of three black students at the time, and the faculty embraced them.Most of the white students, however, did not. They approved a motion that read: "Resolved: That we have no objection to the education and evaluation of blacks but do decidedly remonstrate against their presence in college with us." Even though he had invited the African-American students to the school, dean Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. caved in to the pressure and expelled Delany and the other black students.


In the same year, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act, which allowed slave owners to pursue and capture escaped slaves in any part of the country and set up fines for any law enforcement officer who refused to make such arrests.
Because slave owners needed only an affidavit to accuse someone of being a runaway slave, many free blacks were conscripted into slavery by the law, which outraged Delany and contributed to his support for emigration.


In his book, "The Condition, Elevation, Emigration and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States," written during his Pittsburgh years, Delany said:
"Let no visionary nonsense about habeas corpus, or a fair trial, deceive us; there are no such rights granted in this bill, and except where the commissioner is too ignorant to understand, when reading it, or too stupid to enforce it when he does understand, there is no earthly chance, no hope under heaven for the colored person who is brought before one of these officers of the law."We are slaves in the midst of freedom, waiting patiently and unconcernedly, indifferently, and stupidly, for masters to come and lay claim to us, trusting to their generosity, whether or not they will own us and carry us into endless bondage."



Over the next 15 years, Delany argued strongly for emigration, first to Central or South America, later to Africa.
Despite two trips to Africa to negotiate for possible land for settlements, though, none of his plans for blacks to leave the United States came to fruition.He did take such action in his own life, though. In 1856, he moved to Canada, where he would stay until after the Civil War began.Delany was not able to  successfully because he did not have his own newspaper and never published an autobiography, said John Stauffer, a history professor and anti-slavery expert at Harvard University. "Delany hasn't persisted in public view primarily because he was not nearly as elegant a writer or eloquent a speaker," he said.




Martin Delany was the friend and rival Fredrick Douglass. This blog consists of research from two different sources which are:

Two Conceptions of Black Nationalism: Martin Delany on the Meaning of Black Political Solidarity by Tommie Shelby

Martin Delany, 'Father of Black Nationalism' By Mark Roth / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette



Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/sectionfront/life/martin-delany-father-of-black-nationalism-213106/#ixzz2MGU5qKx0