George T. Downing
George T. Downing (December 30, 1819 – July 21, 1903) was an abolitionist and activist for African-American civil rights while building a successful career as a restaurateur in New York City; Newport, Rhode Island; and Washington, D.C. His father had been an oyster seller and caterer in Philadelphia and New York City, building a business that attracted wealthy white clients. From the 1830s until the end of slavery, Downing was active in the Underground Railroad, using his restaurant as a rest station for refugees on the move. He built a summer season business in Newport, and made it his home. For more than 10 years, he worked to integrate Rhode Island public schools. During the American Civil War (1861–1865), Downing helped recruit African-American soldiers. After the war Downing moved to Washington, D.C., where for a dozen years he ran the Refectory for the United States House of Representatives, House of Representatives. He was a prominent member in the Colored Conventions M ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the List of United States cities by population density, most densely populated major city in the United States, and is more than twice as populous as second-place Los Angeles. New York City lies at the southern tip of New York (state), New York State, and constitutes the geographical and demographic center of both the Northeast megalopolis and the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban area, urban landmass. With over 20.1 million people in its metropolitan statistical area and 23.5 million in its combined statistical area as of 2020, New York is one of the world's most populous Megacity, megacities, and over 58 million people live within of the city. New York City is a global city, global Culture of New ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era.. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime and, by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories are widely read today. Born in Portsmouth, Dickens left school at the age of 12 to work in a boot-blacking factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors' prison. After three years he returned to school, before he began his literary career as a journalist. Dickens edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed readings extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, for education, and for other social ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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James McCune Smith
James McCune Smith (April 18, 1813 – November 17, 1865) was an American physician, apothecary, abolitionist, and author who was born in Manhattan. He was the first African American to hold a medical degree from the University of Glasgow in Scotland. After his return to the United States, he became the first African American to run a pharmacy in the nation. In addition to practicing as a physician for nearly 20 years at the Colored Orphan Asylum in Manhattan, Smith was a public intellectual: he contributed articles to medical journals, participated in learned societies, and wrote numerous essays and articles drawing from his medical and statistical training. He used his training in medicine and statistics to refute common misconceptions about race, intelligence, medicine, and society in general. Invited as a founding member of the New York Statistics Society in 1852, which promoted a new science, he was elected as a member in 1854 of the recently founded American Geographic Soc ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Philip Alexander Bell
Philip Alexander Bell (1808–1889) was a 19th-century American newspaper editor and abolitionist. Born in New York City, he was educated at the African Free School and became politically active at the 1832 Colored Convention. He began his newspaper career with for William Lloyd Garrison's anti-slavery newspaper ''The Liberator'' and became an outspoken voice on a variety of social and political of issues of the day including abolition, suffrage, and the protection of fugitive slaves. In 1837, he founded ''The Weekly Advocate'' newspaper, edited by Samuel Cornish. The paper was later renamed ''The'' ''Colored American'' and co-owned by Charles Bennett Ray. In 1860, he moved to San Francisco where he became co-editor of the African-American newspaper '' The Pacific Appeal.'' After the Civil War he founded and edited '' The San Francisco Elevator'' during the Reconstruction Era. Bell died on April 24, 1889. See also * List of African-American abolitionists See also :A ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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United States Declaration Of Independence
The United States Declaration of Independence, formally The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen States of America, is the pronouncement and founding document adopted by the Second Continental Congress meeting at Pennsylvania State House (later renamed Independence Hall) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on July 4, 1776. Enacted during the American Revolution, the Declaration explains why the Thirteen Colonies at war with the Kingdom of Great Britain regarded themselves as thirteen independent sovereign states, no longer subject to British colonial rule. With the Declaration, these new states took a collective first step in forming the United States of America and, de facto, formalized the American Revolutionary War, which had been ongoing since April 1775. The Declaration of Independence was signed by 56 of America's Founding Fathers, congressional representatives from New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jer ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Fourth Of July
Independence Day (colloquially the Fourth of July) is a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the Declaration of Independence, which was ratified by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, establishing the United States of America. The Founding Father delegates of the Second Continental Congress declared that the Thirteen Colonies were no longer subject (and subordinate) to the monarch of Britain, King George III, and were now united, free, and independent states. The Congress voted to approve independence by passing the Lee Resolution on July 2 and adopted the Declaration of Independence two days later, on July 4. Independence Day is commonly associated with fireworks, parades, barbecues, carnivals, fairs, picnics, concerts, baseball games, family reunions, political speeches, and ceremonies, in addition to various other public and private events celebrating the history, government, and traditions of the United States. Independence Day is the n ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gilbert Du Motier, Marquis De Lafayette
Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette (6 September 1757 – 20 May 1834), known in the United States as Lafayette (, ), was a French aristocrat, freemasonry, freemason and military officer who fought in the American Revolutionary War, commanding American troops in several battles, including the Siege of Yorktown (1781), siege of Yorktown. After returning to France, he was a key figure in the French Revolution of 1789 and the July Revolution of 1830. He has been considered a national hero in both countries. Lafayette was born into a wealthy land-owning family in Chavaniac-Lafayette, Chavaniac in the History of Auvergne, province of Auvergne in south central France. He followed the family's martial tradition and was commissioned an officer at age 13. He became convinced that the American revolutionary cause was noble, and he traveled to the New World seeking glory in it. He was made a major general at age 19, but he was initially not given American ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Alexander Crummell
Alexander Crummell (March 3, 1819 – September 10, 1898) was a pioneering African-American minister, academic and African nationalist. Ordained as an Episcopal priest in the United States, Crummell went to England in the late 1840s to raise money for his church by lecturing about American slavery. Abolitionists supported his three years of study at Cambridge University, where Crummell developed concepts of pan-Africanism. In 1853 Crummell moved to Liberia, where he worked to convert Africans to Christianity and educate them, as well as to persuade African American colonists of his ideas. He wanted to attract American blacks to Africa on a civilizing mission. Crummell lived and worked for 20 years in Liberia and appealed to American blacks to join him, but did not gather wide support for his ideas. After returning to the United States in 1872, Crummell was called to St. Mary's Episcopal Mission in Washington, DC. In 1875, he and his congregation founded St. Luke's Episcopal Chur ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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African Free School
The African Free School was a school for children of slaves and free people of color in New York City. It was founded by members of the New York Manumission Society, including Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, on November 2, 1787. Many of its alumni became leaders in the African-American community in New York. History The school was founded by the New York Manumission Society, an organization that advocated the full abolition of African slavery. In 1785 the group gained passage of a New York state law prohibiting the sale of slaves who were imported into the state. This preceded the national law prohibiting the slave trade, which went into effect in 1808. The New York law also eased restrictions on the manumission of enslaved Africans. The society's members were all white, male, wealthy, and influential."African Free School" New-Y ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Henry Francis Downing
Henry Francis Downing (1846 – February 19, 1928)Jessica Salo"Downing, Henry Francis (1846-1928)" BlackPast.org was an African-American sailor, politician, dramatist and novelist. His cousin was Hilary R. W. Johnson, the first African-born president of Liberia (1884–92).Jeffrey Green"125: Henry F. Downing, African American author in London 1895-1917" Post Card. Biography Henry Francis Downing was born in New York City and named for his father Henry. His paternal grandfather was noted caterer and oyster seller Thomas Downing. Among Downing's uncles was noted caterer and abolitionist George T. Downing, who ran successful businesses in New York, Newport, Rhode Island, and Washington, DC. In 1864 Downing joined the U.S. Navy at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. According to BlackPast.org, "Navy records listed him as having deserted in 1865, though it was later revealed he left the ship to attend his stepfather’s funeral, and his mother had obtained his discharge so that he could assist ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Black Elite
The Black elite is any elite, either political or economic in nature, that is made up of people who identify as of Black African descent. In the Western World, it is typically distinct from other national elites, such as the United Kingdom's aristocracy and the United States' upper class. United Kingdom In the United Kingdom, the black community has largely consisted of immigrants and their descendants whose residency in the country dates from either the time of the old Empire or that of the new Commonwealth. Persons classified as being of African descent have nevertheless been a recognizable component of British society since at least the Elizabethan period. An elite developed within the community over the course of several centuries. Its ranks were increased over time by the mixed-race children of colonial British aristocrats (such as Dido Elizabeth Belle), members of the older black elites of British Africa and the Caribbean (such as Sara Forbes Bonetta), the rise of b ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |