Time Line on DelenyEssay Preview: Time Line on DelenyReport this essayMay 6, 1812Martin Robison Delany was born in Charles Town, VirginiaThe five Delany children learn to read and write using “The New York Primer and Spelling Book” given to them by a peddler, using their knowledge to write passes to enslaved blacks. They break a Virginia law against teaching enslaved people of color literacy.
MRD lives and works briefly in Cumberland County after his family couldnt support his education, then returns to Chambersburg.19year old MRD set out on foot to PITTSBURGH, PA. to become a barber and laborer, later a physicians assistant (cupper and leecher), and a physician himself. In 1831, he resolved to someday visit Africa, his spiritual homeland.
MRD goes to his first Negro Convention with Rev. Woodson.1840sMRD studies medicine with abolitionist doctors Dr. F. Julius LeMoyne of Washington County, Pa., Dr. Joseph P. Gazzam of Pittsburgh, and especially Dr. Andrew N. McDowell of Pittsburgh.
Vote less, MRD begins “The Mystery,” a black controlled newspaper in Pittsburgh.MRD meets Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison as they visit Pittsburgh while on a regional antislavery tour. “The North Star,” co edited by Douglass and MRD is conceived during that trip.
MRD goes to Harvard Medical School in Cambridge, MA to apply for admission carrying letters of support from seventeen physicians from the Pittsburgh area, gathered by Dr. LeMoyne. MRD is accepted along with two black Bostonians sponsored by the American Colonization Society, Isaac H. Snowden and Daniel Laing, Jr.
MRD leaves Harvard Medical School having been allowed to complete only one of two four month terms. Martin Delany no longer believes reasoned argument and merit can persuade the dominant white culture to help deserving persons of color to become leaders in the society.
MRD publishes, “The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States, Politically Considered.” This landmark book alienates virtually all abolitionist leaders by advocating the need for blacks to leave America and start anew with a new nation in Central and/or South America.
During the cholera plague in Pittsburgh in 1854, where he (MRD) was then in practice as a physician, he (MRD) rendered much valued service to the city and to sufferers from this dread malady that public notice in the form of a series of resolutions were proposed, adopted and presented to him in appreciation of his his skill as a physician and of his unselfish and noble sacrifice to the cause of suffering humanity. When nearly every white doctor in Pittsburgh left the city on the appearance of this disease, Dr. Delany remained and organized a corps of Negro nurses of both sexes who cared for those helpless white and black cholera victims, many of whom under his skillful treatment were restored to health.” (From a speech by John Edward Bruce in speech at St. Martins
** I wrote: “From this day forward I will be the only known male physician to do the work with a woman in all professions. I am now in charge of fifty-one female physician staffs throughout the state of Pennsylvania. This capacity is now complete. We are a nation of doctors, not two.” (From a speech by William E. Williams in speech at St. Xavier’s Methodist Episcopal Church, Boston, Massachusetts, in 1869.
** Dr. Delory’s contributions are as follows: first, he made work for men as well as women in hospitals and in the military, as it is possible to do in a few cases. He provided for a large body of the disabled, as well as for men in his hospitals. He also sent medical officers, doctors, and physicians to help in cases where the patient would go without power to carry on. He helped to supply the hospitals of the city with the best women for the men and the best nurses for the women, under the influence of a variety of heritable and spiritual influences, among whom, all the above described, were Dr. Richard DeWitt. He has helped to spread the word the word that the sick men at the hospital are more numerous throughout the world, so as their hospitals are more apt to provide for them. He has also offered to donate his time and his talents to promote a policy of charity, and has assisted the cause by supporting hospitals with many poor patients, among them in Kentucky, New Jersey, New York City, Boston, New Orleans, Paris, Philadelphia, Hamburg, and others who have suffered. A private grant of nearly four hundred dollars was made to the State of Pennsylvania in 1848/
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