William D. Robeson
*William Robeson was born on this date in 1844. He was a minister and abolitionist.
William Drew Robeson was born a slave. His father was Benjamin Robeson, and his mother was Sabra. They were enslaved on the Roberson plantation near Cross Road township in Martin County, North Carolina. He was a descendant of the Igbo people of Nigeria.
In 1860, when he was 15 years old, Robeson escaped slavery with his brother Ezekiel through the Underground Railroad. They made their way to Philadelphia in the free state of Pennsylvania. During the American Civil War, he worked as a laborer in the Union Army.
Afterward, Robeson studied at Lincoln College (now a university), earning an A.B. in 1873 and a Bachelor of Sacred Theology in 1876. While a student at Lincoln University, he met Maria Louisa Bustill, and they married in 1878. They had seven children: Gertrude (who died young); William Drew Jr., called "Bill"; John Bunyan Reeve, called "Reed"; Benjamin, Marian; and Paul LeRoy Robeson, the youngest. Another child died at birth, but the name is not known.
He became the pastor of Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church in Princeton, New Jersey, from 1879 to 1901. Robeson was ousted as minister by his church after 20 years of service. He was said to have aligned himself "on the wrong side of a church fight," having refused to bow to pressure from the "white residents of Princeton" that he ceased to "speak out against social injustice." Upon his dismissal, Reverend William Drew Robeson bypassed any need "to recriminate and rebuke ... As I review the past," he said, "and think upon many scenes, my heart is filled with love." In closing his last address to his Princeton congregation, he implored them, "Do not be discouraged, do not think your past work is in vain."
In 1904, Louisa died in Princeton. Her clothes had caught fire from a coal-burning stove in a kitchen accident. He moved to Westfield, New Jersey, to pastor the Downer Street Saint Luke African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church from 1907 to 1910. He led the congregation through constructing their church, which was completed in 1908. The younger children attended the Washington School at Elm and Orchard Streets. The Robesons lived on the south side of Spring Street, which intersects with Rahway Avenue. The street is now Watterson Street, and the house was taken down.
In 1910, he moved to Somerville, New Jersey, where he led the Saint Thomas African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church congregation. William Robeson died on May 17, 1918. He was buried in Princeton Cemetery next to his wife.
