African American Nationalist

Early Years.

Born 6 May 1812 in Charles Town, Virginia, later the capital of West Virginia, Martin Robinson Delany was a thirdgeneration American. All of his grandparents had been imported from Africa as slaves; his father's father was a Mandingo prince and his mother's father was the chieftain of a Golah village. Delany's father remained enslaved but his mother was free, which meant that Delany was born free. Nevertheless, after a Northern traveler taught Delany and his siblings to read, white harassment induced his mother to move the family to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, where they were soon joined by Delany's father after he was able to purchase his freedom.

Reform Leader.

At the age of nineteen Delany moved to Pittsburgh to study divinity and later medicine. He made the city his home for the next quarter of a century, participating in literary and temperance...