Delany, Martin Robison, 1812-1885

found: MWA/NAIP files(hdg.: Delany, Martin Robison, 1812-1885; usage: Martin Robison Delany; M.R. Delany; Martin R. Delany; note: first black major in the U.S. Army)

found: Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895: From the Colonial Period to the Age of Frederick Douglass, accessed via The Oxford African American Studies Center online database, July 27, 2014:(Delany, Martin Robison; black nationalist, doctor, political activist, journalist, author, military officer; born 06 May 1812 in Charles Town, West Virginia, United States; in 1831, went to Pittsburgh to study under the Reverend Lewis Woodson, an ardent black separatist; in 1843 began the Mystery, a weekly Pittsburgh newspaper that he edited until 1847; in 1852 wrote a book in response to both the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 and the sometimes misplaced intentions of white abolitionists; in 1865, following a meeting with the president Lincoln, he received a commission as a major in the Union Army; two months after the war ended, he switched his political affiliation to the Democratic Party and backed former Confederates in their quest to regain political power; in 1874 he unsuccessfully ran for lieutenant governor of South Carolina; was appointed to a judgeship in Charleston in 1876, a position he held until 1879; died 24 January 1885 in Ohio, United States)

found: African American National Biography, accessed January 12, 2015, via Oxford African American Studies Center database:(Delany, Martin Robison; black nationalist; born 06 May 1812 in Charles Town, West Virginia, United States; elected by a settlement of free blacks in Nicaragua Mayor of Greytown, civil governor of the Mosquito Reservation and commander in chief of the military forces (1852); wrote report on free African Americans: the condition, elevation, emigration, and destiny of the colored people of the United States, politically considered (1852); published ground-breaking fiction, Blake, or the Huts of America: a tale of the Mississippi Valley, the Southern United States, and Cuba; delegate to the democratically innovative South Carolina State Constitutional Convention (1868); worked with Frances Rollin on Life and public services of Martin R. Delany, one of few 19th century biographies of an African American (1868); died 24 January 1885 in Ohio, United States)