People, Locations, Episodes

William C. Nell, Historian born

William Nell

William Cooper Nell, a Black lecturer, journalist, abolitionist, and historian, was born on this date in 1816.

He was born in Boston to William and Louise Cooper. A frequent reader of William Lloyd Garrison’s “Liberator,” Nell joined the antislavery movement and began working for the Liberator newspaper in the 1840s. At many of the antislavery functions in Boston, he was Garrison’s representative. He became active in the Underground Railroad until ill health forced him to withdraw.

In 1851, he became Frederick Douglass's assistant and published his pamphlet on "Colored American Patriots" in the Revolution and the War of 1812. This pamphlet evolved into the book for which he is best known. Nell drew his stories from personal accounts, cemetery records, and research. His book includes an introduction by abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe. Nell has been credited with saving the stories of many Black soldiers from obscurity.

His description of the first Black martyr to the Revolution, Crispus Attucks, brought a key Black figure into American history. Still, his efforts to erect a monument to Attucks were unsuccessful in 1851. In protest of the Dred Scott decision, Nell organized the first Crispus Attucks celebration in America. After the American Civil War ended, Nell became a party that identified the efforts of the Black soldiers in the war. Carter Goodwin Woodson considers Nell to be the first African American historian.

Nell is also acknowledged to be the first federal employee of the United States, having worked in the Boston Post Office in 1863. He assisted in integrating public schools in Massachusetts. William Cooper Nell died on May 25, 1874.

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