Martin Robison Delany Symposium

The African American Program at the Heinz History Center will host the Inaugural Martin Robison Delany Symposium on Aug. 26-27, 2022, at the History Center.

The two-day academic conference’s theme is “Before, During, and Beyond the Civil War” and will take an unprecedented look at the life, career, and legacy of Martin Delany, one the nation’s most influential African American leaders in the 19th century.

Born on May 6, 1812, in Charles Town, Virginia to a free mother, Pati, and enslaved father, Samuel, Delany lived under the yoke of racial oppression. He spent his formative years in Pittsburgh, where his education in enterprise, medicine, and journalism would set him apart from other abolitionists.

A free Black man in Pittsburgh, Delany became an outspoken voice against slavery. In 1843, he published “The Mystery,” the first African American newspaper published west of the Allegheny Mountains, which championed equality for Blacks and supported the abolition of slavery in other parts of the nation. In 1865, President Lincoln would commission him a Major of the 104th United States Colored Infantry (USCI), making him the highest ranking African American field officer in the US Army.

The History Center’s Martin R. Delany Symposium will feature speakers and scholars from across the nation who have studied Delany and his indelible impact. Sessions will examine Delany’s literary publication, Blake, the emigration movement, politics, Black identity, and Delany in public history.

The keynote speakers are Tunde Adeleke, director African American Studies at Iowa State University, and Richard J. Blackett, the Andrew Jackson Professor of History at Vanderbilt University.