Alexander Crummell

Alexander Crummell ( March 3, 1819 in New York City; † September 12, 1898 in Red Bank, New Jersey) was an African American missionary of the Anglican Church in Liberia and Sierra Leone, high school teacher in Monrovia and is revered as a saint of the Anglican Church.

Biography

Childhood and school days

The ancestors Crummells came as slaves from Sierra Leone to the United States, Alexander Crummell was born into a family in the United States, which had risen early to middle class in New York and worked as abolitionists. Boston Crummell, his father, was editor of the journals African American newspaper and the Freedom 's Journal. Alexander Crummell was so intense as a child, his life formative contact with the idea of ​​abolitionism. He enjoyed a comprehensive school-based training, in addition to the regular classes at the African Free School No.. Two dedicated parents house and private teachers. Alexander Crummell then visited the Canal Street High School and graduated in the university entrance.

Study

The parents allowed him to visit the Noyes Academy, one of the then most advanced universities in New Hampshire, who felt ideologically also committed to the ideas of the abolitionists. Crummell had to be decided Anglican priest. His efforts to continue studying at a seminary in the United States were, however, rejected by the competent bodies and even by Bishop Henry Ustick Onderdonk, with reference to its origin. Crummell therefore went in 1847 to England, in the hope that the local Anglican Church would approve his education. Crummel remained almost six years in the UK, he was in 1853 ordained a priest at the prestigious Queens College, Cambridge, and traveled during his studies often political events in order to make a guest speaker attention to the problems of slavery in the United States and in the Caribbean.

"Tall, frail, and black, he Stood, with simple dignity and to Unmistakable air of good breeding. I began to feel the fineness of his character, his calm courtesy, the sweetness of his strength, and his fair blending of the hope and truth of life. "

Liberia and Sierra Leone

The Anglican Church allowed to go in 1856 as a missionary to Liberia and Sierra Leone. To his horror, he had to quickly realize that the previously believed salvation of the locals was threatened by Christianisation in Liberia. He recognized as a cause, that the ruling class of the Americo- Liberians had no interest in sharing their privileges with the locals. Crummell was his work on the mission stations in the Liberian hinterland and became high school teachers in Monrovia, where he passed his already developed in England ideas of Pan-Africanism at its Liberian students. Early 1870s Crummell was ostracized because of his always critical and distanced attitude to Liberian society and feared for his life.

Return to the U.S.

Finally, in 1873 he returned back to the U.S., where he met a purified from the American Civil War Society, which filled him with renewed confidence. He received the parish of St. Luke's Episcopal Church of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington allocated and worked there from 1875 to 1894. During his last years, he still tried to be a sponsor of the American Negro Academy and died in 1898 in Red Bank, New Yersey at the age of 79.

Honors

• Alexander Crummells merits were fully appreciated until the 20th century, the Episcopal Church of the United States of America took Crummell in their calendar of saints on when his day of remembrance was determined September 12.
• Crummell belongs to the group of the "100 greatest African Americans ".