Lewis Woodson

Lewis Woodson (January 1806 – 1878) was an educator, minister, writer, and abolitionist. He was an early leader in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Woodson started and helped to build other institutions within the free African-American communities in Ohio and western Pennsylvania prior to the Civil War. He was also among the original trustees to found Wilberforce University, the first historically black university to be owned and operated by African Americans.

Early life and marriage

Lewis Woodson, the oldest child of Thomas and Jemima Woodson, was born in Greenbrier County, Virginia (now West Virginia) in January 1806. Family oral history has claimed that Thomas Woodson was the eldest child of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson. [ Byron W. Woodson Sr., "A President in The Family," (Westport CT, Praeger, 2001), 61 ] That account is disputed by some Jeffersonian historians, and it has not been supported by modern DNA testing.Fact|Jul 2008|date=July 2008

The Woodson family moved to Chillicothe, Ohio in 1820 or 1821. Soon the Woodsons helped establish an African Methodist Episcopal (AME) congregation there. The congregation was the first AME congregation west of the Allegheny Mountains to secure its own church.

Woodson married Caroline Robinson, who was born in Virginia. He earned a minister's license. In 1827, Lewis Woodson established the African Education and Benevolent Society in Chillicothe.

AME Conferences and Negro Conventions

In 1829 Woodson wrote a letter that was published by "Freedom's Journal", an early African American newspaper. In the letter he denounced expatriation to Africa, but advocated 'colonization' in the United States. The Reverend Lewis Woodson served as secretary for an AME Conference in Hillsborough, Ohio (near Cincinnati) while Bishop Morris Brown presided. A month later in September 1830, Woodson attended the first Negro Convention in Philadelphia at Mother Bethel AME, where Bishop Richard Allen (Reverend) presided. The dislocation of blacks from Cincinnati, Ohio was an important topic of this initial convention.

Settling in Pittsburgh, Woodson joined with John B. Vashon to establish the African Education Society there. As Secretary to the AME Ohio Conference of 1833, Woodson advanced a resolution urging the AME to establish or assist "...common schools, Sunday Schools and temperance societies..." It is the first resolution to urge the AME denomination to support education in such a fashion. Lewis Woodson filled a key role in the establishment of the Third or Ohio District of the AME denomination. Union Seminary, established near Columbus, Ohio in 1847, was a product of this work. Vashon and Woodson befriended Martin Delany, who would become a spokesman for blacks during the Civil War. In 1837 Lewis Woodson served as secretary for a group of African Americans, who created the Pittsburgh Memorial, a document that asserted that blacks should retain the voting right in Pennsylvania. [ Eric Ledell Smith, "The Pittsburgh Memorial," "Pittsburgh History," vol. 80, no. 3 (Fall 1997), 106-7 ] While blacks would lose the right to vote in the Commonwealth, Woodson's efforts were instrumental in securing public funding for the education of blacks. Woodson joined the Western District of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society.

As Augustine and as Father of Black Nationalism

Historian Floyd Miller wrote that Woodson utilized the pen name Augustine, and suggested that Woodson was the Father of Black Nationalism. [ Floyd Miller, "The Father of Black Nationalism," "Civil War History", vol. 17, no. 4 (December 1971)] During a four year period (1837-1841), as "Augustine," Woodson wrote a series of letters that were published in the "Colored American" newspaper. These letters advocated initiatives independent of the benevolence of whites to create institutions, including churches, newspapers, and schools. Woodson/Augustine advocated preparation for the time when the multitudes of American slaves would gain freedom, and require social, organizational, and financial assistance. Unlike most black abolitionists, who altered positions, Woodson never advocated emigration to Africa or a slave uprising.

Establishing Wilberforce University

Along with Bishop Daniel Payne, Woodson served as one of 4 blacks representing the AME Church who joined the 24-member founding Board of Trustees of Wilberforce University of Ohio [ Daniel Payne, "Recollections of Seventy Years," (Salem, New Hampshire, Ayer Co. Publishers Inc., 1991), 226 ] . The university was opened in 1856 by the Methodist Episcopal Church and the AME Church to provide collegiate education to African Americans. Among the trustees was Salmon P. Chase, a strong supporter of abolition and then Governor of Ohio. [ [http://docsouth.unc.edu/church/talbert/talbert.html#p263 Horace Talbert, "The Sons of Allen: Together with a Sketch of the Rise and Progress of Wilberforce University, Wilberforce, Ohio', 1906, p.264-265, "Documenting the American South", 2000, University of North Carolina, accessed 25 Jul 2008] . The actions of Payne and Woodson are particularly significant, since they were the first African Americans to help establish a historically black college.

In 1858 Woodson's youngest sister, Sarah Jane Woodson, a graduate of Oberlin College in Ohio, became the first female to teach at Wilberforce and the first African American female to teach college. (The first historically black college was established in Pennsylvania in 1854 and is now called Lincoln University, however no African Americans participated in its founding.)

The outbreak of the American Civil War cut off students from the South and diverted church resources. In 1862 the Board of Trustees temporarily closed Wilberforce University because of financial problems. In 1863 the AME Church purchased the university and assumed full responsibility for its continued success. The AME Church sold the property used by the Union Seminary to better steer its resources into Wilberforce University.

Lewis Woodson later became a barber in Pittsburgh. He died in 1878. One of his obituaries confidently reported his work on the Underground Railroad. Historian Floyd Miller researched Woodson's life in the 1970s, finding that Woodson taught and mentored Martin Delany.

References

Further reading

*Floyd Miller, "The Search for Black Nationality", (Univ. of Ill. Press, 1975)
*Benjamin Quarles, "Black Abolitionists", New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1969
*Byron W. Woodson Sr., "A President in the Family", ( Praeger, 2001)
*Eric Ledell Smith, "The Pittsburgh Memorial", "Pittsburgh History," vol. 80, no. 3, Fall 1997)
*C. Peter Ripley (Editor) "The Black Abolitionist Papers" The United States, 1830-1846, (Univ. North Carolina Press, 1991)