Dr. James McClune Smith (1813-1865) was born into slavery in the city of New York where his mother emancipated herself at the time of his birth. Technically enslaved until New York State ended slavery in 1827e,e he received an elementary education at Manhattan‘s African Free School but could go no further because of the color of his skin. Seeing Smith’s potential, the Rector of his church raised the funds to send him to Scotland where he earned an AB, MA, and MD in five years.
He returned to the United States the first black credentialed doctor in the United States, in 1837 to begin his medical practice and to open the first black owned pharmacy. Smith was skilled in research and statistics and was able to support the abolition cause with hard facts.
He challenged pseudoscientific justifications for the oppression of African Americans and false data presented by pro-slavery advocates. Smith was a prolific writer for the abolitionist movement, including being a regular columnist in Frederick Douglass’ Paper.
In addition to practicing as a physician for nearly 20 years at the Colored Orphan Asylum in Manhattan, Smith was a public intellectual and a featured speaker and leader in various abolition gatherings. Smith was a friend and close associate of Frederick Douglass and Gerrit Smith, recruiting for the Timbuctoo lands in the Adirondacks.
He contributed articles to medical journals and participated in learned societies including as a founding member of the New York Statistics Society in 1852, which promoted a then new science.
In 1854 of the recently founded American Geographic Society. He was never admitted to the American Medical Association or local medical associations, as a result of the systemic racism that Smith confronted throughout his medical career.
He defied the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 by sheltering and protecting freedom seekers in the city of New York. In 1855, Smith co-founded the interracial Radical Abolitionist Party with Douglass, Smith, and John Brown, and was chosen to preside over its national convention in Syracuse. It was the first time a black American chaired a national political convention.
In 1863, Smith was appointed as professor of anthropology at Wilberforce College, the first African American-owned and operated college in the United States. Too ill to take the position, he died two years later, on November 17, 1865, at the age of 52, from congestive heart failure.
This was nineteen days before ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution that abolished slavery. He was buried at Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn.
Dr. James McClune Smith will be inducted into the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum in Peterboro, Madison County, NY on Saturday, October 19, 2024. Christopher Webber, of San Francisco, the nominator of Smith, will provide a program on Dr. Smith during the Abolition Symposia Saturday afternoon. Programs about fellow inductees Catharine White Coffin, Levi Coffin, and Leonard Andrew Grimes will also be presented in the afternoon.
At 7:00 pm on Friday, October 18, Brian Frey, filmmaker from WSKG Public Television, will present North to Freedom, an original documentary on the role that Upstate New York played in the Underground Railroad in the years leading up to the American Civil War.
After a 19th Century Antislavery dinner served by the Peterboro Methodist Church at 5 pm on Saturday, October 19, the induction ceremonies at 7 pm in the evening will include nominations, introductions of the sponsors, and unveiling the banners that will be installed in the Abolition Hall of Fame.
At 9 am Saturday morning October 19, Norman K. Dann PhD will guide a tour of the Gerrit Smith Estate National Historic Landmark, and Sunday morning October 20 at 9 am, Tom Bennett, Chair of the NAHOF Induction Committee and a retired Social Studies teacher, will meet with folks at the Cazenovia Convention signs at 11 Sullivan Street, in Cazenovia, NY.
The National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum (NAHOF) is located at 5255 Pleasant Valley Road in Peterboro, NY, in the building of the inaugural meeting of the New York State Antislavery Society October 22, 1835. For information and registration visit www.PeterboroNY.org or call (315) 308-1890.
