View source for Martin Delany

{{Short description|American black nationalist (1812–1885)}}
{{Infobox military person
| width_style   = person
| name          = Martin Delany
| image         = Martin_Robison_Delany_(before_1885).jpg
| caption       = 
| birth_name    = Martin Robison Delany 
| birth_date    = {{birth date|1812|05|06}}
| birth_place   = [[Charles Town, West Virginia|Charles Town, Virginia]] (now [[West Virginia]]), U.S.
| death_date    = {{death date|1885|01|24}} (aged 72)
| death_place   = [[Wilberforce, Ohio]], [[U.S.]]
| placeofburial = Massies Creek Cemetery, <br/>[[Cedarville, Ohio]], U.S.
| allegiance    = United States 
| branch        = {{tree list}}
* [[United States Army]]
** [[Union Army]]
{{tree list/end}}
| serviceyears  = 1863–1865
| rank          = [[Major (rank)|Major]]
| commands      = 
| battles       = [[American Civil War]]
| spouse        = Catherine A. Richards
| children      = 
| relations     = 
| laterwork     = 
| signature     = 
}}
'''Martin Robison Delany''' (May 6, 1812{{spaced ndash}}January 24, 1885) was an American abolitionist, journalist, physician, military officer and writer who was arguably the first proponent of [[black nationalism]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.libraries.wvu.edu/delany/home.htm |title=Martin Delany Home Page |access-date=June 21, 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090425074314/http://www.libraries.wvu.edu/delany/home.htm |archive-date=April 25, 2009 }} Profile] Libraries.wvu.edu; accessed August 29, 2015.<br>- Stanford, E. Martin R. Delany (1812–1885). (2014, August 6). [http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Delany_Martin_R_1812-1885 ''Encyclopedia Virginia'']</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite web |date=2007-03-03 |title=Martin Robison Delany (1812-1885) • |url=https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/delany-major-martin-robison-1812-1885/ |access-date=2022-03-06 |language=en-US}}</ref> Delany is credited with the [[Pan-Africanist|Pan-African]] slogan of "Africa for Africans."<ref>Carlisle, Rodney P., (con. Sage Publications, Thomson Gale (Firm)), ''Encyclopedia of Politics'',  SAGE, (2005), page 811, {{ISBN|9781412904094}} [https://books.google.com/books?id=Z6I5DQAAQBAJ&pg=PA811] (last retrieved 9 December 2018)</ref> Born as a [[free person of color]] in [[Charles Town, West Virginia|Charles Town, Virginia]], now West Virginia (not [[Charleston, West Virginia]]), and raised in [[Chambersburg, Pennsylvania|Chambersburg]] and [[Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania]], Delany trained as a physician's assistant. During the [[cholera]] epidemics of 1833 and 1854 in Pittsburgh, Delany treated patients, even though many doctors and residents fled the city out of fear of contamination. In this period, people did not know how the disease was transmitted.

Delany traveled in the South in 1839 to observe slavery firsthand. Beginning in 1847, he worked alongside [[Frederick Douglass]] in Rochester, New York to publish the ''[[North Star (anti-slavery newspaper)|North Star]]''.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |title=Martin R. Delany (1812–1885) – Encyclopedia Virginia |url=https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/delany-martin-r-1812-1885/ |access-date=2022-03-06 |language=en-US}}</ref> In 1850, Delany was one of the first three black men admitted to [[Harvard Medical School]], but all were dismissed after a few weeks because of widespread protests by white students.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Wilkinson|first=Doris Y.|date=Fall 1992|title=The 1850 Harvard Medical School dispute and the admission of African American students|url=https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/42663111|journal=Harvard Library Bulletin|language=en-US|volume=3|issue=3|pages=13–27|pmid=11612967|issn=0017-8136}}</ref><ref name=":0" /> These experiences convinced Delany that black people had no future in the United States, leading him instead to the possibility of settling them in Africa. He visited [[Liberia]], a United States colony founded by the [[American Colonization Society]], and lived in Canada for several years, but when the [[American Civil War]] began, he returned to the United States. When the [[United States Colored Troops]] were created in 1863, he recruited for them. Commissioned as a major in February 1865, Delany became the first African American [[Field grade officer#United States|field grade officer]] in the [[United States Army]].

After the Civil War, Delany went to the South, settling in South Carolina. There he worked for the [[Freedmen's Bureau]] and became politically active, including in the [[Colored Conventions Movement]]. Delany ran unsuccessfully for Lieutenant Governor as an [[Independent Republican Party of South Carolina|Independent Republican]]. He was appointed as a trial judge, but he was removed following a scandal. Delany later switched his party affiliation. He worked for the campaign of [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democrat]] [[Wade Hampton III]], who won the 1876 election for governor in a season marked by violent suppression of black Republican voters by [[Red Shirts (Southern United States)|Red Shirts]] and fraud in balloting.

==Early life and education==
Delany was born free in [[Charlestown, Virginia]] (present-day [[Charles Town, West Virginia]], not [[Charleston, West Virginia]]) to Pati and Samuel Delany. Although his father was enslaved, his mother was a free woman. Under Virginia's slave laws, children were considered born into the social status of their mothers (''[[partus sequitur ventrem]]''). All of Delany's grandparents had been born in Africa. His paternal grandparents were of [[Mandinka people|Mandinka]] ethnicity (from modern-day [[Mali]]), taken captive during warfare and brought as slaves to the [[Colony of Virginia|Virginia colony]]. Family oral history said that the grandfather was a [[chieftain]], who had escaped to [[Canada]] for a period, and died resisting slavery's abuses.<ref name="Rollins">[https://books.google.com/books?id=M4WP3QM7p30C&q=Martin+Delany%27s+mother Frank A. Rollins, ''Life and Public Services of Martin R. Delany''], 1883, reprint 1969, Arno Press, pp. 14–17; accessed February 21, 2011.</ref>

His mother Pati's parents were born in the [[Niger River|Niger Valley]], West Africa, and were of [[Mandinka people|Mandinka]] ethnicity. Her father was said to have been a [[prince]]<ref>Glasco (2004), p. 56</ref> named Yafaye, captured with his betrothed Fenda and brought to America as slaves. After some time, their master gave them their freedom in Virginia, perhaps based on their noble birth. Yafaye returned to Africa. Graci stayed in the colony with their only daughter Pati.<ref name="Rollins"/> When Delany was just a few years old, attempts were made to enslave him and a sibling. Their mother Pati carried her two youngest children 20 miles to the courthouse in [[Winchester, Virginia|Winchester]] to argue successfully for her family's freedom, based on her own free birth.<ref name="Rollins"/>

As he grew up, Delany and his siblings learned to read and write using ''The New York Primer and Spelling Book'', given to them by a peddler. Virginia prohibited education of black people. When the book was discovered in September 1822, Pati moved with her children to nearby [[Chambersburg, Pennsylvania|Chambersburg]] in the free state of [[Pennsylvania]] to ensure their continued freedom. They had to leave their father Samuel, but a year later he was allowed to buy his freedom and he rejoined his family in Chambersburg.<ref name="DABV6">Gates Jr, Henry Louis, Emmanuel Akyeampong, and Steven J. Niven. ''Dictionary of African Biography''. Vol. 6. Oxford University Press, USA, 2012. pp. 177-179</ref>

In Chambersburg, young Martin continued learning. Occasionally he left school to work when his family could not afford for him to study. In Pennsylvania, black children were only educated through the elementary grades, so Delany educated himself by reading. In 1831, at the age of 19, he journeyed west to the growing city of [[Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania|Pittsburgh]], where he attended the Cellar School of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. He apprenticed with a white physician.<ref>{{cite news
|title=Delany made his mark as a doctor, writer, black nationalist, officer
|first=Diana
|last=Blowers
|newspaper=[[Dayton Daily News]] ([[Dayton, Ohio]])
|date=February 22, 1995
|page=25
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/34782234/article_on_martin_robison_delaney/
|via=newspapers.com}}</ref>

Delany and three other young black men were later accepted into [[Harvard Medical School]], but they were forced to leave after white students protested. The whites reportedly petitioned the school to exclude applicants of color.<ref name="biography.com">[http://www.biography.com/people/martin-robison-delany-9270228 Biography of Martin Robison Delany], biography.com; accessed November 4, 2015.</ref>

==Marriage and family==
While living in Pittsburgh, in 1843 Delany met and married Catherine A. Richards. She was the daughter of a successful food provisioner, said to be one of the wealthiest families in the city.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=tKxOpAh78IsC&q=Pati+Delany+case+in+Virginia Neil A. Hamilton, ''American Social Leaders and Activists''], Infobase Publishing, 2002, pp. 103–04, accessed February 24, 2011.</ref> The couple had eleven children, seven of whom survived into adulthood. The parents stressed education, and some of their children graduated from college.<ref name=":1" />

==Pittsburgh==
Delany became involved with Trinity [[A.M.E. Church]] on Wylie Avenue, which had classes for adults. The church was part of the first independent black denomination in the United States, which was founded earlier in the 19th century in Philadelphia. Shortly after, he learned [[classics]], [[Latin]] and [[Greek language|Greek]] with Molliston M. Clark, who studied at [[Washington & Jefferson College|Jefferson College]]. During the national [[cholera]] epidemic in 1832, Delany became apprenticed to Dr. Andrew N. McDowell, where he learned contemporary techniques of [[fire cupping]] and [[Hirudotherapy|leeching]], then considered the primary techniques to treat most diseases. He continued to study medicine under the mentorship of Dr. McDowell and other abolitionist doctors, such as Dr. F. Julius LeMoyne and Dr. Joseph P. Gazzam of Pittsburgh.<ref>Levine (editor) and Delany (2003) p487</ref>

Delany became more active in political matters. In 1835, he attended his first National Negro Convention, held annually in Philadelphia since 1831.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.newpittsburghcourieronline.com/index.php/featured-news/national/13530-this-week-in-black-history-5-29-13?showall=&start=3|title=This Week In Black History 5-29-13|work=New Pittsburgh Courier|access-date=August 13, 2015|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://archive.today/20130708061731/http://www.newpittsburghcourieronline.com/index.php/featured-news/national/13530-this-week-in-black-history-5-29-13?showall=&start=3|archive-date=July 8, 2013}}<br>- {{cite web|url=http://www.blackpast.org/?q=aah/national-negro-convention-movement-1831-1864|title=National Negro Convention Movement (1831-1864) - The Black Past: Remembered and Reclaimed|work=blackpast.org|date=April 2011|access-date=August 13, 2015}}</ref> He was inspired to conceive a plan to set up a 'Black Israel' on the east coast of Africa.<ref name="DABV6"/>

In Pittsburgh, Delany began writing on public issues. In 1843, he began publishing ''[[Mystery (newspaper)|The Mystery]]'', a Black-controlled newspaper. His articles and other writings were often reprinted in other venues, such as in abolitionist [[William Lloyd Garrison]]'s ''[[The Liberator (anti-slavery newspaper)|The Liberator]]''.<ref>Levine (editor) and Delany (2003) p29</ref> A eulogy which Delany delivered for Rev. Fayette Davis in 1847 was widely redistributed. His activities brought controversy in 1846, when he was sued for libel by "Fiddler" Johnson, a Black man he accused in ''The Mystery'' of being a [[slave catcher]]. Delany was convicted and fined $650 — a huge amount at the time. His white supporters in the newspaper business paid the fine for him.<ref>Levine (editor) and Delany (2003) p27</ref>

While [[Frederick Douglass]] and [[William Lloyd Garrison]] were in Pittsburgh in 1847 on an anti-slavery tour, they met with Delany. In the same year, after a falling-out of sorts occurred between Douglass and ''The Liberator'' editor Garrison over the use of violence in the abolition cause and the concept of a strictly African-American-run newspaper, Delany with Douglass conceived of the newspaper developed as the ''[[The North Star (anti-slavery newspaper)|North Star]]'': to give voice to the stories of African Americans from their own accounts.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-North-Star-American-newspaper |title=The North Star |date=October 3, 2013 |first=Melissa |last=Petruzzello |website=[[Encyclopædia Britannica Online]] |access-date=November 2, 2018}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Martin-R-Delany |title=Martin Delany |date=January 12, 2000 |website=[[Encyclopædia Britannica Online]] |access-date=November 2, 2018}}</ref> They started publication later that year in [[Rochester, New York]], where Douglass was based. Douglass handled the editing, printing, and publishing, while Delany traveled to lecture, report, and obtain subscriptions.<ref>Levine (editor) and Delany (2003) p69-70</ref>

In July 1848, Delany reported in the ''North Star'' that U.S. District Court Justice [[John McLean]] had instructed the jury in the ''Crosswait'' trial to consider it a punishable offense for a citizen to thwart those trying to "repossess" an alleged runaway slave. His coverage influenced the abolitionist [[Salmon P. Chase]] to lead a successful drive to remove McLean as a candidate of the [[Free Soil Party]] for the [[President of the United States|Presidency]] later that summer.<ref>Levine (editor) and Delany (2003) p109-110</ref>

==Medicine and nationalism==
While living in Pittsburgh, Delany studied medicine under doctors. He founded his own practice in cupping and leeching. In 1849, he began to study more seriously to prepare to apply to [[medical school]]. In 1850 he was accepted into [[Harvard Medical School]], after presenting letters of support from seventeen physicians, although other schools had rejected his applications. Delany was one of the first three black men to be admitted there. However, the month after his arrival, a group of white students wrote to the faculty, complaining that "the admission of blacks to the medical lectures highly detrimental to the interests, and welfare of the Institution of which we are members". They cited that they had "no objection to the education and elevation of blacks but do decidedly remonstrate against their presence in College with us."{{sfn|Sterling|1996|pp=130–131}}

Within three weeks, Delany and his two fellow black students, [[Daniel Laing, Jr.]] and [[Isaac H. Snowden]], were dismissed, despite many students and staff at the medical school supporting their being students.{{sfn|Sterling|1996|p=133}} Furious, Delany returned to Pittsburgh. He became convinced that the white ruling class would not allow Black people to become leaders in society, and his opinions became more extreme. His book, ''The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States, Politically Considered'' (1852), argued that black people had no future in the United States.<ref>{{Cite book|publisher=Martin R. Delany|last=Delany|first=Martin Robison|title=The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States|location=Philadelphia, PA|year=1852|url=http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17154|format=[[EPUB]]}}</ref> He suggested they should leave and found a new nation elsewhere, perhaps in the West Indies or South America. More moderate abolitionists were alienated by his position. Some resented his criticizing men who failed to hire colored men in their own businesses. Martin Delany was also actively involved in the Prince Hall [[Freemasonry]] movement, which aligned with his efforts to promote civil rights and social progress for African Americans during the 19th century.<ref>{{cite web |title=Martin Delany: Prince Hall Mason and Leader |url=https://blackpast.org/african-american-history/delany-martin-1812-1885 |website=BlackPast |publisher=BlackPast.org |access-date=2024-10-09}}</ref>

Delany worked for a brief period as principal of a [[colored]] school before going into practice as a physician. During a severe cholera outbreak in 1854, most doctors abandoned the city, as did many residents who could leave, since no one knew how the disease was caused nor how to control an epidemic. With a small group of nurses, Delany remained and cared for many of the ill.

Delany is rarely acknowledged in the historiography of African-American education.<ref>Anderson, 1988; Bullock, 1967; Butchart, 1980).</ref> He is generally not included among African-American educators, perhaps because he neither featured prominently in the establishment of schools nor philosophized at length on Black education.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Adeleke|first1=Tunde|title=Martin R. Delany's philosophy of education: A neglected aspect of African American liberation... |journal= Journal of Negro Education|date=Spring 1994 |volume=63 |issue=2 |page=221|doi=10.2307/2967385|jstor=2967385}}</ref>

==Emigration==
Having heard stories about his parents' ancestors, he wanted to visit Africa, which he considered his spiritual home.<ref>[http://www.libraries.wvu.edu/delany/earlyage.htm "Timeline of Martin R. Delany's Life, The Early Years"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110427103003/http://www.libraries.wvu.edu/delany/earlyage.htm |date=2011-04-27 }}, hosted at West Virginia University; accessed February 20, 2011</ref>

In August 1854, Delany led the [[National Emigration Convention]] in [[Cleveland, Ohio]],<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia|publisher=Case Western Reserve University|title=National Emigration Convention of Colored People|encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History|access-date=May 30, 2013|date=March 4, 1998|url=http://ech.case.edu/cgi/article.pl?id=NECOCP|location=Cleveland, Ohio}}</ref> along with his friend [[James Monroe Whitfield]], the abolitionist poet, and other black activists.

Delany advanced his emigrationist argument in his second manifesto, "Political Destiny of the Colored Race on the American Continent". The 1854 convention approved a resolution stating: "[A]s men and equals, we demand every political right, privilege and position to which the whites are eligible in the United States, and we will either attain to these, or accept nothing."<ref>Levine (editor) and Delany (2003) p243</ref> A significant number of women attendees also voted for the resolution, considered the foundation of [[black nationalism]].{{citation needed|date=November 2015}}

In 1856, Delany moved his family to [[Chatham, Ontario]], Canada, where they remained for nearly three years. In Chatham, he assisted in [[Underground Railroad]] activities, helping resettle American refugee slaves who had reached freedom in Canada.<ref name="DABV6"/> The same year, he was a member of the [[Chatham Vigilance Committee]] that sought to prevent former slaves from being returned to the United States and brought back into slavery, such as the case of Sylvanus Demarest.<ref name="CVC">{{Cite web |title=Chatham Vigilance Committee and the Demarest Rescue |url=https://theclio.com/entry/89722 |access-date=2021-04-11 |website=Clio |language=en}}</ref>

In response to [[Harriet Beecher Stowe]]'s anti-slavery novel ''[[Uncle Tom's Cabin]]'' (1852), in 1859 and 1862, Delany published parts of ''[[Blake; or the Huts of America]]: A Tale of the Mississippi Valley, the Southern United States, and Cuba'' in serialized form. His novel portrayed an insurrectionist's travels through slave communities. It highlights Cuba as the source of illegal international slave trade to the United States.<ref>Tess Lloyd. "The Suppressed Fury of Enslaved Black Americans and Cubans in Martin Delany's Novel 'Blake'". ''The Ten-Hour Day: A Blog about Nineteenth-Century Labor, Women’s Rights, Slavery, Abolition, the Civil War, and More''. April 16, 2023. 
|url=https://tesslloyd.com/blog/on-the-brow-of-a-volcano-cuba-the-south-and-slavery-in-martin-delanys-blake</ref> He believed that Stowe had portrayed slaves as too passive, although he praised her highlighting the cruelty of Southern slave owners. Modern scholars have praised Delany's novel as an accurate expression of black culture. The first half of Part One was serialized in ''The Anglo-African Magazine'', January to July 1859. The rest of Part One and Part Two was included in serial form in the ''Weekly Anglo African Magazine'' from 1861 to 1862. It was not published in book form until 1970 and the last chapters remain missing.<ref>{{citation
|url=http://www.iath.virginia.edu/utc/africam/blakehp.html
|title=Stand still and see the salvation"], ''Uncle Tom's Cabin & American Culture'', University of Virginia, on line. Retrieved January 14, 2009.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Delany_Martin_R_1812-1885#start_entry|title=Delany, Martin R. (1812–1885)|website=www.encyclopediavirginia.org}}</ref>

In May 1859, Delany sailed from New York for [[Liberia]], to investigate the possibility of a new black nation in the region. The colony had been founded by the [[American Colonization Society]] to relocate free black people outside of the United States. He traveled for nine months and signed an agreement with eight indigenous chiefs in the [[Abeokuta]] region, in today's [[Nigeria]], that would permit settlers to live on "unused land" in return for applying their skills for the community's good.<ref name="DABV6"/> It is a question whether Delany and the chiefs shared the same concepts of land use.{{citation needed|date=December 2016}} The treaty was later dissolved due to warfare in the region, opposition by white missionaries, and the advent of the [[American Civil War]].<ref name="DABV6"/>

In April 1860, Delany left Liberia for England. His presence at the International Statistical Congress in London in July of that year discomfited the American minister to Great Britain, former Vice-president [[George M. Dallas]]:<blockquote>Toward the close of the session, [[Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux|Lord Brougham]], seeing Mr. Dallas, the American Minister, present, said: 'I hope my friend Mr. Dallas will forgive me reminding him that there is a negro present, a member of the Congress.' (Loud laughter and vociferous cheering.) After the cheering had subsided, Mr. Dallas made no sign, but the negro in question, who happened to be Dr. Martin R. Delany, from Canada, rose, amid loud cheers, and said: 'I pray your Royal Highness will allow me to thank his lordship, who is always a most unflinching friend of the negro, for the observation he has made, and I assure your Royal Highness and his lordship that I am a man.' This novel and unexpected incident elicited a round of cheering very extraordinary for an assembly of sedate statisticians.<ref>[[The North Star (anti-slavery newspaper)|Douglass' Monthly]], Sept. 1860, [https://transcription.si.edu/view/12248/ACM-2007.19.4_13 p.334], as transcribed by Smithsonian Digital Volunteers: Transcription Center (retrieved Apr. 29, 2023); ''see also'' [[Empire (newspaper)|The Empire]], Sydney, Australia, Sept. 20, 1860, [https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/60498525 p.2] (retrieved Apr. 29, 2023).</ref></blockquote>According to some sources, an abashed American delegate walked out in protest.<ref name="DABV6"/> As 1860 ended, Delany returned to the United States. The next year, he began planning settlement of Abeokuta, and gathered a group of potential settlers and funding. However, when Delany decided to remain in the United States to work for emancipation of slaves, the pioneer plans fell apart.{{citation needed|date=December 2016}}

==Union Army service==
[[File:Major Martin Delany.jpg|thumb|220px|Martin R. Delany was the only black officer who received the rank of major during the Civil War.]]
In 1863, after [[Abraham Lincoln]] had called for a military draft, the 51-year-old Delany abandoned his dream of starting a new settlement on Africa's West Coast. Instead, he began recruiting black men for the [[Union Army]]. His efforts in [[Rhode Island]], [[Connecticut]], and later [[Ohio]] raised thousands of enlistees, many of whom joined the newly formed [[United States Colored Troops]]. His son Toussaint Louverture Delany (named after [[Toussaint Louverture]] a major leader of the Haitian Revolution) served with the 54th Regiment.<ref>Douglas R. Egerton, ''The Wars of Reconstruction'' (Bloomsbury Press 2014), pp. 24-26</ref> The senior Delany wrote to the [[United States Secretary of War|Secretary of War]], [[Edwin M. Stanton]], requesting that he make efforts "to command all of the effective black men as Agents of the United States", but the request was ignored. During the recruitment, 179,000 black men enlisted in the U.S. Colored Troops, almost 10 percent of all who served in the Union army.<ref>{{cite book|last1=White|first1=Deborah|title=Freedom On My Mind|date=2013|publisher=Bedford/St. Martin's|location=Boston|page=334|edition=volume 1}}</ref>

In early 1865, Delany was granted an audience with Lincoln.<ref>{{cite book|last1=White|first1=Deborah|title=Freedom On My Mind|date=2013|publisher=Bedford/St. Martin's|location=Boston|page=335|edition=Volume 1}}</ref> He proposed a corps of black men led by black officers, who he believed could serve to (1) enforce the Emancipation Proclamation and (2) recruit newly freed black Southerners to the Union Army. Although the government had already rejected a similar appeal by [[Frederick Douglass]], Lincoln was impressed by Delany and described him as "a most extraordinary and intelligent man" in a written memo to his Secretary of War Edwin Stanton.<ref>Levine (editor) and Delany (2003) p388</ref> Delany was commissioned as a major in February 1865, becoming the first black field officer in the United States Army and achieving the highest rank an African-American field officer would reach during the Civil War.<ref name="DABV6"/><ref>Egerton p. 51</ref> (The highest-ranking African-American officer of the Civil War, among those who received their commissions from the United States government, was Dr. [[Alexander Thomas Augusta]], a medical officer who obtained the rank of Lt. Colonel by brevet.)

Delany especially wanted to lead colored troops into [[Charleston, South Carolina]], the former secessionist hotbed. When Union forces captured the city, Major Delany was invited to the War Department ceremony in which Major General [[Robert Anderson (Union officer)|Robert Anderson]] would unfurl the very flag over [[Fort Sumter]] that he had been forced to lower four years earlier. Massachusetts Senator [[Henry Wilson]] and abolitionists [[William Lloyd Garrison]] and [[Henry Ward Beecher]] also participated in the ceremony. Major Delany had recruited black Charlestonians to restore the capacity of the 103rd and 104th regiments and start the 105th regiment of U.S. Colored Troops. He arrived at the ceremony with Robert Vesey, son of [[Denmark Vesey]], who had been executed for starting a slave rebellion. The man came in the ''Planter'', a ship piloted by the former slave [[Robert Smalls]] (who had taken it over during the war and driven the ship to Union lines, running the Confederate blockade outside Charleston Harbor).

The following day, the city learned that President Lincoln had been assassinated by John Wilkes Booth. Delany continued with the planned political rally for Charleston's freedmen, with Garrison and Senator Warner as speakers.<ref>Egerton, pp. 2-6</ref> He soon published an open letter to African Americans asking them to contribute to a memorial for "the Father of American Liberty".<ref>Egerton p. 91</ref> Two weeks later, Delany was scheduled to speak at another rally, before the visiting [[Chief Justice of the United States|Chief Justice]] [[Salmon P. Chase]]. A journalist was surprised when Delany addressed the issue of ill-feelings between black freedmen and mulattos (or "browns", [[free people of color]] and mixed race) in Charleston. He said that two mulattos had informed authorities about Denmark Vesey's plans for a rebellion in 1822 conspiracy, rather than trying to promote racial healing and empowerment between the groups.<ref>Egerton pp. 7, 14-15</ref>

After the war, Delany initially remained with the Army and served under General [[Rufus Saxton]] in the [[52nd United States Colored Infantry Regiment|52nd U.S. Colored Troops]]. He was later transferred to the [[Freedmen's Bureau]], serving on [[Hilton Head, South Carolina|Hilton Head]]. Encountering Delany at a black church in South Carolina several weeks after the end of the Civil War, journalist [[Whitelaw Reid]] described him as "a coal-black negro, in the full uniform of a Major of the army, with an enormous regulation hat" and "no lack of flowing plume, or gilt cord and knots," who, while giving an ill-received speech, was noisily interrupted by the arrival of [[Salmon P. Chase]], [[Chief Justice of the United States|Chief Justice]] of the [[Supreme Court of the United States|Supreme Court]].<ref>[[Whitelaw Reid]], [https://archive.org/details/cu31924028782781/page/80/mode/1up?view=theater ''After the War: A Southern Tour, May, 1865 to May 1, 1866'', pp.80-82], Moore, Wilstach & Baldwin, 1866. (Reid's narrative does not name Delany, but identifies him as "the same negro about whom Lord Brougham raised that beautiful little diplomatic muddle with United States Minister Dallas, at a meeting of the Royal Geographical Society in London.")</ref> Delany shocked white officers after the war by taking a strong position in supporting redistribution of land to freedmen. Later in 1865, Delany was mustered out of the Freedmen's Bureau and shortly afterward resigned from the Army.<ref name="DABV6"/>

==Later life==
Following the war, Delany continued to be politically active. He established a land and brokerage business in 1871 and worked to help black cotton farmers improve their business and negotiating skills to get a better price for their product.<ref>Eric Foner, ''Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution 1863-1877'' p. 546</ref> He supported the [[Freedman's Bank]] (as did Douglass), and also traveled and spoke in support of the [[Colored Conventions Movement]].<ref>Egerton pp. 130, 192</ref> Delany also argued against carpetbaggers and black candidates for office when he saw fit. For instance, he opposed the [[Vice President of the United States|vice presidential candidacy]] of [[Jonathan Jasper Wright]] and [[John Mercer Langston]] on the grounds of inexperience,<ref>Levine (editor) and Delany (2003) p409-410</ref> and he opposed the candidacy of another black man as Charleston's mayor.

Delany unsuccessfully sought various positions, such as appointment as Consul General to [[Liberia]].<ref>Levine (editor) and Delany (2003) p437</ref> In 1874, Delany ran as an [[Independent Republican Party of South Carolina|Independent Republican]] for Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina (with [[John T. Green]] as the gubernatorial candidate). Despite the corruption scandals that enveloped former Republican governor [[Franklin Moses, Jr.]] (who chose not to run for re-election), their ticket lost to Republican Attorney General [[Daniel H. Chamberlain]] and his running mate [[Richard Howell Gleaves]].<ref>Levine (editor) and Delany (2003), p442<br>- Foner p. 543</ref>

Delany was appointed as a trial justice (judge) in Charleston.<ref>Levine (editor) and Delany (2003) p490</ref> In 1875, charges of "defrauding a church" were brought against him. After conviction, he was forced to resign, and served time in jail. Although pardoned by Republican [[Daniel Henry Chamberlain|Governor Chamberlain]], with the intervention of [[Wade Hampton III|Wade Hampton]],<ref>Levine (editor) and Delany (2003) p452</ref> Delany was not allowed to return to his former position.

Delany supported Democratic candidate [[Wade Hampton III|Wade Hampton]] in the [[South Carolina gubernatorial election, 1876|1876 gubernatorial election]], the only prominent black person to do so.<ref>Foner p. 572</ref> Partly as a result of black swing votes encouraged by Delany, Hampton won the election by fewer than 1,100 votes. However, the election was marred by white intimidation and violence against black Republicans, in an effort to suppress the black vote. Armed men from "rifle clubs" and the [[Red Shirts (Southern United States)|Red Shirts]] operated openly. The latter was a [[paramilitary]] group of mostly white men who worked to suppress black voting as "the military arm of the Democratic Party."<ref>George C. Rable, ''But There Was No Peace: The Role of Violence in the Politics of Reconstruction'', Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1984, p. 132</ref> By 1876, South Carolina rifle clubs had about 20,000 white men as members.<ref name="cisco">Walter Brian Cisco, [https://books.google.com/books?id=uqKmExW5vE8C&q=REd+Shirts&pg=PA272 ''Wade Hampton: Confederate Warrior, Conservative Statesman''], Potomac Books, 2004, p. 260</ref> More than 150 black people were killed in election-related violence.<ref>[[Nicholas Lemann]], ''Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War'', New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux, Paperback, 2007, p. 174</ref>

In early 1877, the federal government withdrew its troops from the South after reaching a compromise over the national election. This marked the end to Reconstruction, and Governor Chamberlain left the state. The Democrats, calling themselves Redeemers, had taken control of South Carolina's legislature. Paramilitary groups such as the Red Shirts continued to suppress black voting in the Carolinas, especially in the upland counties.

In reaction to whites regaining power and the suppression of black voting, black Charlestonians started planning again for emigration to Africa. In 1877, they formed the Liberia Exodus Joint Stock Steamship Company, with Delany as chairman of the finance committee. A year later, the company purchased a ship, the ''Azor'', for the voyage led by [[Harrison N. Bouey]]. He served as president of the board to organize the voyage.<ref name="DABV6"/>

==Last years and death==
In 1880, Delany withdrew from the project to serve his family. Two of his children were students at [[Wilberforce University]] in Ohio and required money for tuition fees. His wife had been working as a seamstress to make ends meet. Delany began practicing medicine again in Charleston. On January 24, 1885, he died of [[tuberculosis]] in [[Wilberforce, Ohio]].<ref name="DABV6"/>

Delany is interred in a family plot at Massies Creek Cemetery in [[Cedarville, Ohio]], next to his wife Catherine, who died July 11, 1894.<ref>[http://www.lwfaam.net/event/memorial.htm MARTIN ROBISON DELANY MONUMENT] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160106061821/http://www.lwfaam.net/event/memorial.htm |date=2016-01-06}}, lwfaam.net. Retrieved January 27, 2019.</ref> For over 120 years his family plot was only marked with a small government-issued tombstone on which his name was misspelled. Three of his children, Placido (died 1910), Faustin (died 1912) and Ethiopia (died 1920), were subsequently buried alongside their parents. Every grave except Martin's remained unmarked. In 2006, after many years of fundraising, The [[National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center]] was able to raise $18,000 (~${{Format price|{{Inflation|index=US-GDP|value=18000|start_year=2006}}}} in {{Inflation/year|US-GDP}}) to have a monument built and placed at the grave site of Delany and his family. The monument is made of black granite from Africa and features an engraved picture of Delany in uniform during the war.<ref>[http://www.bjmjr.net/delany/home.htm Delany profile] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160212182017/http://www.bjmjr.net/delany/home.htm |date=2016-02-12 }}, bjmjr.net. Retrieved November 24, 2015.</ref>

==Legacy and honors==
According to historian [[Benjamin Quarles]] the most extraordinary characteristic about Delany:
: was his deep-seated pride of race in his wide range of activities.... Delaney has been called 'the father of African nationalism,' a sobriquet reflecting his pride in his color and ancestry, his insistence that Negro Americans control their destiny, and his firm belief that Black Africa would one day regain its ancient glory.... By word and deed Delaney's pride in blackness and his emotional attachment to Africa struck a responsive vein in the hearts of many Negro Americans of his day and subsequently.<ref>John A. Garraty, ed., ''Encyclopedia of American Biography'' (1974) pp 270-271.</ref>

*In 1853 the abolitionist poet [[James Monroe Whitfield]] dedicated his book "America and other poems" to Delany.<ref>{{Cite book|title=America and other poems|url=https://archive.org/details/americaotherpoem00whit|last=Whitfield|first=James M.|publisher=James S. Leavitt|year=1853|location=public domain|pages=dedication}}</ref>
*In 1991, the [[Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission]] installed a [[List of Pennsylvania state historical markers in Washington County|historical marker]] near 5 [[PPG Place]] in [[Pittsburgh]], near to where Delany published '''The Mystery'',{{explain|date=August 2019}}<sup> Meaning unclear.</sup> that commemorated Delany's historic importance.<ref name="phmcdatabase">{{cite web|title=Martin R. Delany (1812–1885) – PHMC Historical Markers|work=Historical Marker Database|format=Database search|publisher=Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission|url=http://search.pahistoricalmarkers.com|access-date=December 10, 2013|archive-url=https://archive.today/20131207041235/http://search.pahistoricalmarkers.com/|archive-date=December 7, 2013|url-status=dead}}</ref> In 2003, Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission installed a second historical marker on Main Street in Chambersburg, noting Delany's historic importance.<ref name="phmcdatabase" />
*In 1999, Star Lodge #1 of the Prince Hall Masons erected a historical marker in Charles Town to honor Delany (adding an "n" to his middle name).<ref>Martin Robinson Delany Historical Marker (hmdb.org)</ref>
*In 2002, the scholar [[Molefi Kete Asante]] listed Delany as among the [[100 Greatest African Americans]].<ref>Asante, Molefi Kete (2002). ''100 Greatest African Americans: A Biographical Encyclopedia''. Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books; {{ISBN|1-57392-963-8}}.</ref>
*In 2017, the [[West Virginia Legislature]] passed a resolution to name the new bridge over the [[Shenandoah River]] carrying [[West Virginia Route 9]] the "Major Martin Robison Delany Memorial Bridge"<ref name="HCR 41">{{cite web |title=HCR 41|url=http://www.wvlegislature.gov/Bill_Status/bills_text.cfm?billdoc=hcr41%20intr.htm&yr=2017&sesstype=RS&i=41&houseorig=h&billtype=cr |website=West Virginia Legislature}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Building Bridges: African-American Civil War major's name lives on |url=http://www.journal-news.net/news/local-news/2017/04/building-bridges-african-american-civil-war-majors-name-lives-on/ |access-date=17 July 2018 |agency=The Journal (Martinsburg, WV)}}</ref>
*A mannequin of Delany greets visitors at the From Slavery to Freedom exhibit at the [[Heinz History Center]] in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.heinzhistorycenter.org/exhibits/from-slavery-to-freedom|title=From Slavery to Freedom &#124; Exhibits &#124; Heinz History Center}}</ref>

==Works==
See the bibliography, {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090501040100/http://www.libraries.wvu.edu/delany/mrdwrit.htm |date=May 1, 2009 |title="Martin Delany's Writings" }}, West Virginia University Library.
*[http://www.gutenberg.org/files/17154/17154-h/17154-h.htm   ''The Condition, Elevation, Emigration and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States, Politically Considered''], (1852)
*''[http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Delany_Martin_R_1812-1885#start_entry The Origins and Objects of Ancient Freemasonry: Its Introduction into the United States and Legitimacy among Colored Men]'' (1853)
*''[http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Delany_Martin_R_1812-1885#start_entry Political Destiny of the Colored Race on the American Continent]'' [http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Delany_Martin_R_1812-1885#start_entry in ''Proceedings of the National Emigration Convention of Colored People Held at Cleveland, Ohio the 24th, 25th and 26th of August, 1854''] (1854)
*Introduction to William Nesbitt, ''Introduction to Four Months in Liberia'' (1855)
*[http://www.iath.virginia.edu/utc/africam/blakehp.html ''Blake, or the Huts of America'', (1859–62), Part I (the only part Delany published)]; 
*[https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22118 Martin Robison Delany, ''Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party'' (1861)]<ref>[[A. H. M. Kirk-Greene]], [https://www.jstor.org/pss/273801 "America in the Niger Valley: A Colonization Centenary"], ''[[Phylon]]'' 22:4; 23, 225–39 (1962).</ref>
*''[http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Delany_Martin_R_1812-1885#start_entry University Pamphlets: A Series of Four Tracts on National Policy]'' (1870)
*''[http://www.ankhonline.com/ankh_num_14_15/ankh_14_15_m_beatty_martin%20delany%20and%20egyptology.pdf Principia of Ethnology: The Origin of Races and Color, with an Archaeological Compendium of Ethiopian and Egyptian Civilization]'' (1879)
*[https://books.google.com/books?id=Q29GUexeQUkC&dq=%22political+destiny+of+the+colored+race+on+the+american+continent%22&pg=PA227 ''Political Destiny of the Colored Race on the American Continent''] (1854)

==See also==
*[[List of African-American abolitionists]]
*[[Thornton Chase]], a white officer in the 104th USCI
{{Portal bar|Politics|United States|Pan-Africanism}}

==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==Bibliography==
*{{cite book
|last=Sterling
|first=Dorothy
|author-link=Dorothy Sterling
|title=The Making of an Afro-American: Martin Robison Delany 1812–1885
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mjySgYiG3DgC
|access-date=May 29, 2013
|year=1996
|publisher=Da Capo Press
|isbn=978-0-306-80721-3
}}

==Further reading==
*Asante, Molefi K., ''Kemet, Afrocentricity, and Knowledge'', Africa World Press, 1990, {{ISBN|0-86543-188-4}}
* Brittan, Jennifer C. "Martin R. Delany's Speculative Fiction and the Nineteenth-Century Economy of Slave Conspiracy." ''Studies in American Fiction'' 46.1 (2019): 79–102. [https://scholar.google.com/scholar?output=instlink&q=info:R5Ny5uT7pyEJ:scholar.google.com/&hl=en&as_sdt=1,27&as_ylo=2014&scillfp=5943488865908306910&oi=lle online]
* Doolen, Andy. "When Mammy Lies: The Everyday Resistance of Slave Women in Martin Delany's Blake." ''Studies in American Fiction'' 45.1 (2018): 1–17. [https://scholar.google.com/scholar?output=instlink&q=info:6hwdvaus6iMJ:scholar.google.com/&hl=en&as_sdt=1,27&as_ylo=2014&scillfp=10413908552702825124&oi=lle online]
*{{cite book
  | last =Levine | first =Robert Steven 
  | title =Martin Delany, Frederick Douglass, and the Politics of Representative Identity
  | publisher =UNC Press Books | year = 1997 | page =314
  | url =https://books.google.com/books?id=CYG-m1rG3dIC
  | isbn =0-8078-4633-3 }}
*{{cite book
  | editor-last =Levine | editor-first =Robert Steven 
  | last =Delany |first =Martin Robison | title =Martin R. Delany: A Documentary Reader
  | publisher =UNC Press Books | year = 2003 | page =507
  | url =https://books.google.com/books?id=9dBC2U-EgBsC
  | isbn =0-8078-5431-X }}
*Lott, Eric, ''Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class''. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. {{ISBN|0-19-507832-2}}. p.&nbsp;236.
*[[Paul Gilroy|Gilroy, Paul]]. ''The Black Atlantic'', Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993.
* Glasco, Laurence Admiral, editor. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=76Ckd_hje2IC The WPA History of the Negro in Pittsburgh]'', University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004, {{ISBN|0-8229-4232-1}}
* Havard, John C. "Mary Peabody Mann's Juanita and Martin R. Delany's Blake: Cuba, Urban Slavery, and the Construction of Nation." ''College Literature'' 43.3 (2016): 509–540. [https://scholar.google.com/scholar?output=instlink&q=info:lbsbRu-PusIJ:scholar.google.com/&hl=en&as_sdt=1,27&as_ylo=2014&scillfp=16057907522724026124&oi=lle online]
*McGann, Jerome. "Rethinking Delany's Blake." ''Callaloo'' 39.1 (2016): 80–95. [https://scholar.google.com/scholar?output=instlink&q=info:EBHc0xlBbJUJ:scholar.google.com/&hl=en&as_sdt=1,27&as_ylo=2014&scillfp=10615313548372309871&oi=lle online]
*Madera, Judith. [https://www.dukeupress.edu/Black-Atlas Duke University Press - Black Atlas] [https://books.google.com/books/about/Black_Atlas.html?id=UR_CoAEACAAJ ''Black Atlas: Geography and Flow in Nineteenth-Century African American Literature'']. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2015.
* Nwankwo, Ifeoma K. ''Black Cosmopolitanism: Racial Consciousness, and Transnational Identity in the Nineteenth-Century Americas'' (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005).
* Orihuela, Sharada Balachandran. "The Black Market: Property, Freedom, and Piracy in Martin Delany's Blake; or, The Huts of America". ''J19: The Journal of Nineteenth-Century Americanists'' 2.2 (2014): 273–300. [https://scholar.google.com/scholar?output=instlink&q=info:m5v-_HZmlI8J:scholar.google.com/&hl=en&as_sdt=1,27&as_ylo=2014&scillfp=7196897814316830239&oi=lle online]
*{{cite book
  | last =Rollins | first =Frank A. | title =Life and Public Services of Martin R. Delany
  | publisher =Ayer Publishing (reprint) | year = 1970 
  | url =https://books.google.com/books?id=M4WP3QM7p30C
  | isbn =0-405-01934-3 }}
* Shreve, Grant. "The Exodus of Martin Delany." ''American Literary History'' 29.3 (2017): 449–473.
*Sterling, Dorothy. ''The Making of an Afro-American: Martin Robison Delany 1812–1885'', 1971, reprint Da Capo Press, 1996.
*Thomas, Rhondda R. & Ashton, Susanna, eds (2014). [http://www.sc.edu/uscpress/books/2013/7314.html ''The South Carolina Roots of African American Thought.''] Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. "Martin Robison Delany (1812–1885)," p.&nbsp;37–41.

==External links==
{{commons category}}
{{wikisource|works=or}}
{{wikiquote}}
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20110504111549/http://www.libraries.wvu.edu/delany/home.htm Web site on Delany]
*[http://www.mrlincolnandfreedom.org/library/mr-lincolns-contemporaries/martin-delany/ "Martin Delany"], ''Mr. Lincoln and Freedom,'' The Lincoln Institute and the Lehrman Institute
*{{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120424110258/http://www.libraries.wvu.edu/delany/carolina.htm |date=April 24, 2012 |title=James Surkamp, "Timeline of Martin Delany's Life" }}, ''To Be More Than Equal: The Many Lives of Martin R. Delany, 1812–1885''
*{{Gutenberg author |id=7178}}
*{{Internet Archive author |sname=Martin Robison Delany |sopt=t}}
*{{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120710024929/http://www.libraries.wvu.edu/delany/goals.htm |date=July 10, 2012 |title=James Surkamp, "Some Writings by Delany in ''The Mystery''" }}
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20020428181059/http://www.carnegielibrary.org/exhibit/neighborhoods/downtown/down_n10a.html "Downtown: The Great Fire"], ''The Mystery'', 16 April 1845, hosted by Carnegie Mellon University Library
*[http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Delany_Martin_R_1812-1885 "Martin R. Delany"], ''Encyclopedia Virginia''
*{{Find a Grave|12629}}
*''This article contains material written by James Surkamp and released into the public domain. The original material can be found at {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120424045333/http://www.libraries.wvu.edu/delany/home.htm |date=April 24, 2012 |title=''To Be More Than Equal: The Many Lives of Martin R. Delany, 1812–1885'' }}, the Martin Delany homepage.''
* [http://www.ankhonline.com/ankh_num_14_15/ankh_14_15_m_beatty_martin%20delany%20and%20egyptology.pdf Martin Delany and Egyptology] by Mario Beatty
*[http://reader.eblib.com/(S(iathudtobxipkdfre1hjj3iz))/Reader.aspx?p=413342&o=2916&u=V0dlKJIVNW0%3d&t=1449504102&h=B58D23219377E505757F7F85CEAA8F79E325C04F&s=40539163&ut=9755&pg=1&r=img&c=3036&pat=n&cms=2&sd=2# Martin R. Delany]{{Dead link|date=September 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} by Robert S. Levine

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