Incidents of Hope

Rev. Alexander Crummell was an African-American pastor who encouraged his people in the face of ongoing disappointments under U.S. law and in American society.

In 1895, Crummel preached a sermon entitled Incidents of Hope for the Negro Race in America.  The Library of Congress tells us more about it:

In this sermon African American theologian and intellectual Reverend Alexander Crummell comments on the struggles of African Americans to achieve full citizenship in the United States. He notes that although some whites sought to keep African Americans ignorant, "intellectual aspiration has characterized the race in all the lands of their servitude." He notes that "for two hundred years there has been a struggle for the alphabet; the primer; the newspaper; and the Bible."

Crummell, born free, had received a B.A. degree at Queen's College in Cambridge, England, in 1853.

Credits

Image, courtesy Library of Congress.

Quoted passage from the Library of Congress web site:  African-American Odyssey.

Linked sermon, by Rev. Crummel, courtesy Library of Congress.