Born into slavery on the eastern shore of Maryland in 1807, James William Charles Pennington escaped from slavery in 1828 and settled for a time in Long Island, where he studied in night school. Devoted to black education, he became an antislavery preacher, teacher, activist, and writer. Pennington attended classes at Yale College in New Haven, although Yale forbade him to officially enroll or to use its library. In 1838 he officiated at the wedding of Frederick Douglass and Anna Murray. During the 1840s and 1850s he pastored African Congregational churches in Newtown, Long Island; Hartford, Connecticut; and New York City, gaining international recognition as an antislavery orator and civil rights activist. Harriet Beecher Stowe in Uncle Tom’s Cabin praised him as an exemplary African American leader. In addition to many sermons and speeches, Pennington authored one of the first history textbooks for African American teachers, A Text Book of the Origin and History . . . of Colored People (1841) and a memoir of slavery, The Fugitive Blacksmith, or Events in the History of James W.C. Pennington (1849).
James W. C. Pennington (1807-1870)
James W. C. Pennington
Public domain image
Kari Winter is a Professor of American Studies in the Department of Global Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University at Buffalo, SUNY. Her books include The American Dreams of John B. Prentis, Slave Trader (Race in the Atlantic World series, U of Georgia P, 2011), The Blind African Slave: or, Memoirs of Boyrereau Brinch, Nick-named Jeffrey Brace (scholarly edition of long-lost 1810 slave narrative; Wisconsin Studies in Autobiography series, 2005), and Subjects of Slavery, Agents of Change: Women and Power in Gothic Novels and Slave Narratives, 1790-1865 (U of Georgia P, 1992, 1995, 2010).
Similar Posts
Nashville Streetcar Boycott (1905-1907)
Karine Jean-Pierre (1977- )
Bone Crusher/Wayne Hardnett Jr (1971- )
Carnegie Negro Library, Greensboro, North Carolina (1924-1963)
Recent Posts
Zoë Saldaña (1978- )
The Webster Telephone Exchange Building (1906- )
Huel Davis Perkins (1924-2013)
Thomas Bailey Shropshire (1925-2003)
Do you find this information helpful?
A small donation would help us keep this available to all. Forego a bottle of soda and donate its cost to us for the information you just learned, and feel good about helping to make it available to everyone.
BlackPast.org is a 501(c)(3) non-profit and our EIN is 26-1625373. Your donation is fully tax-deductible.
CITE THIS ENTRY IN APA FORMAT:
Winter, K. (2007, March 08). James W. C. Pennington (1807-1870). BlackPast.org. https://new.blackpast.org/african-american-history/pennington-james-w-c-1807-1870/
Further Reading
Allyson Michelle Felix (1985– )
E. Simms Campbell (1906-1971)
(1974) M. Gatsha Buthelezi, “Towards Black Fulfillment”
Valerie Thomas (1943- )
The Advocate, Portland, Oregon (1903-1936)
(1866) Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, “We Are All Bound Up Together”
Mt. Calvary Missionary Baptist Church, Tucson, Arizona (1900- )
