Martin R. Delany was born in 1812 in Charlestown, Virginia (later West Virginia), the son of a slave father and a free mother who worked as a seamstress. When he was ten years old, his mother, Pati Delany, relocated with her five children to the free state of Pennsylvania to avoid threatened imprisonment for teaching Martin and his siblings to read (Gates 199). Soon afterward Delany’s father, Samuel, purchased his own freedom and re-joined the family in the town of Chambersburg.
In 1832, at the age of twenty, Delany moved to Pittsburgh, making the 150-mile journey across the Allegeheny mountains on foot. He was drawn by the city’s educational opportunities and its politically active African American community. Over the next decade a number of Pittsburgh’s Black leaders, including
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Citation: Chura, Patrick. "Martin R. Delany". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 05 July 2024 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=1210, accessed 21 November 2024.]
