Such was the limited opportunity for a thorough education among the colored people, and so great was the prejudice against them while Martin Delany was endeavoring to acquire his, that it is safe to infer that no colored person, recognized as colored, previous to the establishment of institutions of learning under the anti-slavery agitation, ever completed a collegiate course. True it is, that a few were educated under the auspices of colonization societies, with no design of benefiting the colored people in this country, but on the condition of their leaving it for Africa.
While pursuing his studies at Pittsburg, his name was solicited and obtained by the zealous Mr. Dawes, agent of the Oberlin Collegiate Institute, at the beginning of that now famous institute. He afterwards declined going, it being then but a preparatory school, and his studies being fully equal to those prosecuted there. He, like Byron, could not understand that knowledge was less valuable, or less true as knowledge, without having the parchment to confirm it; while the opportunity of the great poet and that of the get-by-chance student differs; one having no formidable barriers to overcome, the other having first to struggle against oppositions, in order to create a healthy public sentiment, that others after him might gain it without the giant’s task.
CHAPTER IV.
MORAL EFFORTS.
In 1834 Major Delany was actively engaged in the organization of several associations for the relief of the poor of the city, and for the moral elevation of his people. Among them was the first total abstinence society ever formed among the colored people; and another known as the Philanthropic Society, which, while formed ostensibly for benevolent purposes, relative to the indigent of the city, was really the foundation of one of the great links connecting the slaves with their immediate friends in the North,—known as the “Underground Railroad,”—which, for long years, had baffled the slaveholders. Of its executive board he was for many years secretary.
The work contributed by this association constituted it the invaluable aid of the anti-slavery cause. Its efficiency may be judged from the fact that, while in its infancy, it is recorded that, within one year, not less than two hundred and sixty-nine persons were aided in escaping to Canada and elsewhere.
His sphere in life gave character to him, identifying him with a people and a time at once wonderful and perilous; wonderful that amid all the indignities and outrages heaped upon them, unrebuked by church or state, they did not degenerate into infidels and law-breakers, instead of being the Christian and truly law-abiding element of the republic—perilous, for the emissaries of the South instituted the fiendish spirit of mobbism, selecting either the dwellings or the business-places of the prominent colored men of the city. On one occasion, while this spirit was rife, they made an attack on the house of Mr. John B. Vashon. Major Delany, then quite a young man, but true to his principles of justice and humanity, and in view of future outrages, together with men of more mature age, called on Judge Pentland and other prominent citizens, to notify them that, though they were a law-abiding people, they did not intend to remain and be murdered in their houses without a most determined resistance to their assailants, as there was little or no assistance or protection rendered by the authorities.
This resulted in his being chosen one of the special police from among the blacks and whites appointed in conjunction with the military called out by the intrepid mayor of Pittsburg, Dr. Jonas R. McClintock. Many were the occasions on which he stood among the foremost defenders against those mobs which at that time were more frequent than desirable.
The general grievances of the colored people of the North, occasioned solely on account of caste, were a disgrace to the civilization of the age, and incompatible with the elements of our professed republicanism, which induced them to call an assemblage year after year, delegating their best talent to these, for the purpose of placing before the people the true condition of the colored people of the North, and also to devise methods of assisting the slaves of the South.