CRUMMELL, ALEXANDER (March 3, 1819–September 12, 1898), Episcopal priest and missionary, was a significant figure in both African American and West African Christianity. In The Souls of Black Folks, W. E. B. Du Bois devoted a chapter to analyzing Crummell's intellectual and moral strength. Crummell believed that Christianity had a providential role to play in the development of Africa.

Crummell was born in New York City. His father was an African prince from the Temne people who had been kidnapped and sold into slavery at the age of thirteen. Alexander Crummell attended the African Free School and Canal Street High School. In 1835 he traveled, with Henry Highland Garnet, to Canaan, New Hampshire, to attend a new experimental interracial college. However, the town's people burned the college to the ground after he and Garnet gave some inflammatory speeches during the town's observance of Independence Day. Therefore Crummell attended Oneida Institute...