Black, Samuel W. “Rare Martin Delany Signed Document | Blog | History Center.” Home, 16 Feb. 2018, http://www.heinzhistorycenter.org/blog/collection-spotlight/rare-martin-delany-signed-document.

Samuel W Black at the Heinz History Center created an article on Delany, posting a rare signed document in what appears to be a court summons. The article speaks of Delany’s early life as well as his various successes within his journey through Black Nationalism, his time at Harvard medical school before being kicked out and even his time in the US military. Although this might seem like a random piece of history, this holds a simple but important moment in time in Delany’s life. The court summons consists of Delany signing his signature along with a court order of a man who was ordered to pay 19 dollars to another individual. Many pieces of history such as these are often lost, but to have something as small as this, provides a lot of information for the reader to fully get an idea of the things Delany has contributed to in his amazing life.

Rare photographs of Delany’s signature on a court summons.

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Robinson, Phoebe. “Pittsburgh’s Underground Railroad, Preserved and Not.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 24 Feb. 2017, http://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/travel/pittsburgh-pennsylvania-underground-railroad-slavery.html.

This New York Times article created by Tony Cenicola, speaks about Pittsburg and its silent history. Stating the various different abolitionists that have done so much for the city of Pittsburg, it focuses its attention on the one and only Delany. Phoebe Robinson makes sure to talk about the Pittsburg Underground Railroad in which Delany was a big aspect of this particular time. A lone plaque in which speaks about Delany and his effort to create a better lifestyle for all black people in America sits in a busy city square. On this plaque states “Martin R. Delany (1812-1885) – A promoter of the African American nationalism, Delany published a Black newspaper, The Mystery, at an office near here. He attended Harvard Medical School, practiced medicine in Pittsburg, and was commissioned as a major in the civil war.” This brief statement on Delany that should give the reader a great understanding of Delany and his life but actually holds back so much more the reader should know. This Plaque is not even a sliver of the accomplishments Martin R Delany had accomplished in his lifetime.

A plaque commemorating the life of Delany (Pittsburg)

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The Impact of Trauma on the African Identity (Omowale), Dwayne Wong. “The Impact of Trauma on the African Identity.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 8 Dec. 2017, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-impact-of-trauma-on-the-african-identity_us_5a2949f4e4b053b5525db7b8.

This Article comprises of the many different ways the black identity has been disrupted due to the colonization in the French Caribbean. Dwayne Wong (Omowale) writes a Huffington Post article speaking on Delany and his writings within his book “The huts of America” in which Delany speaks on the Black Fellowship Society and how that organization was systematized for mixed raced individuals that held very negative views to darker skinned people. This book made sure to talk about colorism within the black community and how colonialism altered the minds of black people and how they see certain shades of black. This is an obvious sign of colonialism affecting the African Identity. This is true violence that still happens to this day. Omowale perfectly makes sure to connect this old ideology of problems that happened in the past to things that are happening today to individuals like Kanye West.

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 (Omowale), Dwayne Wong. “Censoring Howard Zinn and Censoring American History.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 15 May 2017, www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/censoring-howard-zinn-and-censoring-american-history_us_58bcb202e4b02b8b584dfd6a.

This article, Dwayne Wong Omowale talks about a bill that was introduced recently that would completely overrule Howard Zinn and his works, which would publically fund schools. The bill was proposed because conservatives stated that the curriculum gazes at U.S. history through the lenses of race and class, thus placing too much emphasis on slavery and Native American genocide and apparently not enough emphasis on the American exceptionalism and the idea of the glory of the free market economy. This type of ideologies is what attempts to stunt the growth of Black Nationalism, but as we remember the teachings abolitionists like Delany, we can demonize comments such as these. Omowale makes sure to incorporate these important teachings to put down these conservative thoughts, picking a passage of Delany stating “We love our country, dearly love her, but she don’t love us…” many conservatives may think African Americans have such a better life than how it used to be, but in reality these racial undertones still affect black lives.

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Jamal, Wali. “Martin Delany Slavery Speech.” YouTube, YouTube, 30 Jan. 2013, www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynnpkdxsSNc.

This Youtube video is a speech of one of Delany’s speeches that he gave in the past. Wali Jamal reads this speech with passion and persistence, almost making it seem like Delany was the one presenting it. This speech covers the biblical references connecting to the black bodies that have been displaced from Africa. In one minute and twenty seconds, Delany puts forth his concerns to God about how long the slaves will be in chains as well as how long prejudice will continue put down the black individual. These questions are repeated over and over to make sure these questions are ingrained into the reader’s mind. Although this speech is directed to God Himself, Delany tactfully allows this speech to be heard by all.

 

Orihuela, Sharada B. “The Black Market: Property, Freedom, and Piracy in Martin Delany’s Blake; Or, the Huts of America.” J19, vol. 2, no. 2, 2014, pp. 273-300,367. ProQuest, https://login.intra.mills.edu:2443/login?url=https://search-proquest com.intra.mills.edu:2443/docview/1565693199?accountid=25251.

In this Article “The Black Market: Property, Freedom, and Piracy in Martin Delany’s Blake; or, The Huts of America” by Sharada Balachandran Orihuela, she speaks upon the subjects of property rights and the presence of ownership in which examines certain illegal transactions in Delany’s book “The Huts of America.” Inside this novel holds Delany’s outlook on both personhood and property and how in America these two aspects clash. These specific outlooks made by Delany are then taken by Orihuela and analyzed in a rather more present time philosophy.

In “The Huts of America,” Delany describes a slave named Henry Blake who is owned by a slave owner named Colonel Franks who then escapes after seeing his wife sold to another slave owner. As Blake sets off to Cuba to find his wife, he later realizes he is a child of a prosperous Cuban merchant who was sold into slavery as a young child, is then reunited with his wife and his long lost family. With this knowledge of this story, Orihuela conceptualizes this information is three forms of “Piratic economic activities.” These activities are argued by Orihuela as a highlighting aspect of the hypocritical ways of a market that disregards the black individual. These activities Orihuela speaks on consist of Blake escaping slavery and radically participating in self-ownership of his own body in an institution that thrives to dominate it. Further on Blake goes on to disseminating certain ideologies about the black revolution; this is seen as going against slave codes that prohibit trespassing and speeches given by black people. This novel “The Huts of America” shows how Delany knew how to go against a system that creates no room for black individuals to progress in any type of way. This revolting book and analysis is a step forward in the expansion of Black Nationalism.

Delany’s book “The Huts of America” seen in the Angelo-African Magazine in July, 1859

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Vaughn, Leroy. “Our Heritage: Black Nationalism.” Los Angeles Sentinel, Jun 23, 1999. ProQuest, https://login.intra.mills.edu:2443/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.intra.mills.edu:2443/docview/369341875?accountid=25251.

Within this Article, Leroy Vaughn from the Los Angeles Sentinel writes on the importance and meaning of Black Nationalism in which they define the philosophy of it as a “direct response to racial discrimination and the overt hostility of white society toward anyone of African descent.” The Los Angeles Sentinel recognizes Delany and his influential credentials in which they state a moment in history where his choices for black change, altered the future for black individuals in Africa as well as in America. This particular article acknowledged how Martin R Delany convinced cotton dealers and philanthropists in Christian colonies in Africa telling them that they could compete with the slave cotton in the South. This lead to Delany creating the “African Aid Society” in which would lend a certain amount of money that the first group of settlers who were going to leave in Delany’s African Expedition. After this idea was crushed by the Civil war, Martin was later able to persuade President Abraham Lincoln to give him the permission to recruit an all black army in which would overtake the south with arms. This encouragement Delany gave would have been the start of a large battle between the enslaved and those who were for the continuation of the peculiar institution. This movement never was executed due to the end of the civil war.

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Worrill, Conrad. “History has Ignored Dr. Martin Delany.” Philadelphia Tribune, Feb 11, 2007, pp. 1. ProQuest, https://login.intra.mills.edu:2443/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.intra.mills.edu:2443/docview/337797010?accountid=25251.

Will Conrad, a writer at the Philadelphia Tribune speaks on Delany as a forgotten figure in black history. Acknowledging his influential works, Conrad speaks upon Delany’s “Principia of Ethnology: The Origins of Race and Color with an Archaeological Compendium of Ethiopian and Egyptian Civilization.” Conrad explains Delany’s views on the concepts of Egyptian people and their race. A common European conception that the worlds first civilizations were created by white Egyptians, was completely shut down by Delany in which he wrote in his book “Condition and Elevation”:

“White men are producers, we are consumers … we deliberately wait until they have got them in readiness, then walk in, and contend with as much assurance for a ‘right’ as though the whole thing was bought by, paid for and belonged to us.”

Delany continuously condemned white beliefs of the Egyptians being something other than black, in which he stated they completely are. Delany’s consistency of speaking his mind and rightfully backing up his statements with factual evidence fueled Black Nationalism and its betterment of the African American peoples.

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Bekale, Marc. “MARTIN R. DELANY AND THE ONTOLOGICO-HISTORICAL QUEST FOR BLACKNESS.” Black Renaissance, vol. 5, no. 1, 2003, pp. 77. ProQuest, https://login.intra.mills.edu:2443/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.intra.mills.edu:2443/docview/215531962?accountid=25251.

This Article examines a speech in which Delany gave at the 1854 National Emigration Convention in Cleveland Ohio that was titled “Report on the Political Destiny of the Colored re on the American Continent.” Mark Bekale speaks on how Delany deconstructs some of the different theories on racial evolution. Delany’s speech holds such unapologetic words that are meant to disrupt the feelings of white readers. Delany states:

“The whites in the southern part of the United States have decreased in numbers, degenerated in character, and become mentally and physically imbecile[…] Blacks and colored {have} steadily increased in numbers, regenerated in character, and grown mentally and physically vigorous.” (10-11)

This passage clearly demonstrates how Delany has no problem with rejecting of white superiority overpowering the black race. Showing the audience how life in the south is, this inversion of icons places the black race above white people, the opposite of what has been applied in the American society for hundreds of years. This article contributes to the understanding of Delany’s tactics in broadening the idea of Black Nationalism within America.

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Ronnick, Michele V. “Racial Ideology and the Classics in the African-American University Experience.” Classical Bulletin, vol. 76, no. 2, 2000, pp. 169-180. ProQuest, https://login.intra.mills.edu:2443/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.intra.mills.edu:2443/docview/222303271?accountid=25251.

Again we see new aged article speaking about Delany and questioning why hasn’t this influential and highly important figure been featured more in our black history. Although this question is never really answered, Delany and his black nationalist work are recognized and broadcasted as an influential change to the racial inequality black people face every day. Michele Ronnic speaks on the radical ideologies in the African American Educational experience. After attending Harvard University, looking to receive a degree in medical school, his dreams were cut short by white students forcing him out of the school. Delany, a very studious individual, was born in a time where being black and educated was considered a serious crime, but this didn’t stop him. Ronnick reveals what black individuals have to go through just to have a basic education, making sure the reader can conceptualize to an extent to how it feels to put in so much effort for it to be stripped away all because of the color of their skin. This convinced Delany that the power of reason did not control the countries leaders.

Martin Robison Delany is one of the most influential abolitionists in black history. Although Delany does not seem to receive a lot of media coverage on his works, his writings and political journeys speak for themselves in the change of African American racial injustices. Martin R Delany was born in present-day West Virginia in 1812, a child born from an enslaved father and free mother who all left to find a better life in Pennsylvania after the family bought his fathers freedom. Delany gravitated to the military life in which he continued to be very active in the realm of Black Nationalism, which later steered in the direction of social change in the African American community. In these following sources specifically from Delany’s time, will show the perspective of other writers and what they thought about the political and racial movements Delany was apart of in his lifetime.

“Every people should be originators of their own destiny.” – Martin R Delany