Life and public services of Martin R. Delany

This biography tells the story of Martin Robison Delany, an American abolitionist, journalist, physician, military officer, and writer who is considered the first proponent of black nationalism. Born a free person of color in Virginia and raised in Pennsylvania, Delany trained as a physician's assistant and treated patients during cholera epidemics. He traveled to the South in 1839 to observe slavery firsthand and worked alongside Frederick Douglass to publish the North Star. Delany dreamed of establishing a settlement in West Africa, recruited for the United States Colored Troops during the Civil War, and became the first African-American field grade officer in the US Army.