E. Ethelred Brown.
THE LIFE OF CHARLES B. RAY
Charles Bennett Ray was born in Falmouth, Massachusetts, December 25, 1807, and died August 15, 1886. He first attended the school and academy of his native town and then studied theology at the Wesleyan Academy of Wilbraham, Massachusetts, and later at Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut. He became a Congregational minister. His chief work, however, was in connection with the anti-slavery movement, the Underground Railroad and as editor of The Colored American from 1839 to 1842. As a national character he did not measure up to the stature of Ward, Remond and Douglass, and for that reason he is too often neglected in the study of the history of the Negro prior to the Civil War. But he was one of the useful workers in behalf of the Negroes and accomplished much worthy of mention.[1]
Ray became connected with the anti-slavery movement in 1833, in the early winter of which the American Anti-Slavery Society was formed. He proved his fidelity to the sacred cause of liberty by lending practical aid which men in high places often had neither the time nor the patience to give and contributed much to the final overthrow of slavery. "Many a midnight hour," said he, "have I with others walked the streets, their leader and guide and my home was an almost daily receptacle for numbers of them at a time."[2] In those days when so many matters of importance touching the subject of slavery had to be adjusted, the advocates of freedom often met for an interchange of views; and Mr. Ray's home became, on several occasions, the scene of such gatherings where Lewis Tappan, Simeon S. Jocelyn, Joseph Sturge, the celebrated English philanthropist, and others discussed with great earnestness the inner workings of that grand moral conflict.
In coöperation with wealthy abolitionists whose purse strings were wont to be loosed at the call of humanity, he assisted in enabling many a slave to see the light of freedom. Several were taken by him to the Plymouth Church in Brooklyn, which under the inspiration of Henry Ward Beecher, the fearless champion of the cause, contributed liberally toward the succor of the oppressed. In 1850, fifteen years after the formation of the Vigilance Committee of the city of New York, of which Theodore S. Wright was president, the New York State Committee was formed with a plan and object similar to those of the more local organizations. Of this new association Gerrit Smith was president and Ray, a member of the executive board as well as corresponding secretary, an office he held also in the older society. While Ray was not every time the moving spirit of these organizations, he figured largely in carrying out the plans agreed upon by these bodies. In the discharge of the trust committed to his hands he usually acquitted himself with an honorable record.[3]
In advancing the anti-slavery cause, Ray was among the first to work with the circle of radical free Negroes who, through the conventions of the free people of color meeting in Philadelphia and in other cities of the North from 1830 until the Civil War,[4] did much to make the freedman stand out as worthy objects of the philanthropy of the anti-slavery societies. During this period the American Colonization Society was doing its best to convince free Negroes of their lack of opportunity in this country to induce them to try their fortunes in Africa and because of the rapidity with which some free Negroes yielded to this heresy, there was a strong probability that the anti-slavery movement might be weakened by such adherence to faith in colonization to the extent that the ardor of the militant abolitionists would be considerably dampened. While not among the first to start the convention movement among Negroes, Ray in the course of time became one of its most ardent supporters and no convention of the free people of color was considered complete without him.
His career as a journalist in connection with The Colored American was highly creditable. This paper was established in 1837 as the Weekly Advocate with Samuel E. Cornish as editor and Phillip A. Bell as proprietor. After two months it was decided to change the name of the publication to The Colored American, under the caption of which it appeared March 4, 1837. Bell then called to his assistance Charles B. Ray who served him as general agent. Traveling as such he went through all parts of the North, East, and West writing letters to present to the public his observations and experiences and lecturing while speaking of the claims of his paper as the champion of the slave and the organ of thought for the free Negro.[5]
Ray rose to the position of one of the proprietors of The Colored American in 1838 and upon the withdrawal of Bell from the enterprise the following year, he became the sole editor and continued in that capacity until 1842 when he suspended publication. He was regarded by his contemporary, William Wells Brown, as a terse and vigorous writer and an able and eloquent speaker well informed upon all subjects of the day. "Blameless in his family relations, guided by the highest moral rectitude, a true friend to everything that tends to better the moral, social, religious and political condition of man. Dr. Ray," says Brown, "may be looked upon as one of the foremost of the leading men of his race."[6]