John H. Smythe
John H. Smythe | |
---|---|
Henry H. Garnet | |
In office April 12, 1882 – December 14, 1885 | |
President | Chester A. Arthur Grover Cleveland |
Preceded by | Henry H. Garnet |
Succeeded by | Moses A. Hopkins |
Personal details | |
Born | Richmond, Virginia, U.S. | July 14, 1844
Died | September 5, 1908 Richmond, Virginia, U.S. | (aged 64)
Political party | Republican |
Alma mater | Howard University |
Occupation | Politician, educator |
John H. Smythe (July 14, 1844 – September 5, 1908) was an American diplomat who served as the
Early life
John H. Smythe was born on July 14, 1844, in
Career
London and Washington, DC
In 1865, on the recommendation of
Wilmington and Liberia
In Wilmington, Smythe was politically active. He was a member of the State Constitutional Convention in 1875 and supported the Republican Party, campaigning for
Participation in civic organizations
In December 1877, Smythe was one of a number of important African-American leaders who formed the Negro American Society, led by Alexander Crummell and John Wesley Cromwell[2] which dissolved by 1880 but twenty years later reformed as the American Negro Academy.[3]
Smythe wrote introductions to volumes of poetry by Daniel Webster Davis,[4] and worked with poet George Moses Horton.[5]
On March 5, 1897, Smythe was a part of the formation of the American Negro Academy led by
Other organizations
Among his many memberships, Smythe was a member of the London Atheneum Club.[1] He was a prominent member of the Grand Fountain of the United Order of True Reformers, a Richmond civic organization, and Smythe was editor and chief of the organization's paper, The Reformer, and was chief of the Bureau of Information of the group from 1892 to 1896.[10] In 1903, Smythe formed and was the president of a company called, "Negro Development and Exposition Company of the United States of America" which sought to raise money for a black exhibit for the 1907 Jamestown Exposition in Norfolk in 1907.[11]
Personal life, death and legacy
Smythe was a Presbyterian in religion and married Fannie Shappen and had children.[1] He died in Richmond, Virginia on September 5, 1908, at the home of his daughter, Dr. Clara H. Smythe.[12]
An elementary school for black children in Norfolk, Virginia, was named for Smythe.[13]
References
- ^ a b c d e Simmons, William J., and Henry McNeal Turner. Men of Mark: Eminent, Progressive and Rising. GM Rewell & Company, 1887. p872-877
- T. Thomas Fortune, Richard T. Greener, William Calving Chase, Charles N. Thomas, Alexander T. Augusta, W. H. Jackson, J. D. Baltimore, G. W. Price, and John H. Cook,
- ^ Cromwell, Adelaide M. Unveiled voices, unvarnished memories: The Cromwell family in slavery and segregation, 1692–1972. University of Missouri Press, 2007. p104-105
- ^ Ikonné, Chidi. From DuBois to Van Vechten: The Early New Negro Literature, 1903–1926. No. 60. Greenwood Publishing Group, 1981. p60-61
- ^ Brawley, Benjamin. Early Black American Writers. Courier Corporation, 1935. p111
- ^ Seraile, William. Bruce Grit: The Black Nationalist Writings of John Edward Bruce. Univ. of Tennessee Press, 2003. p110-111
- ^ Federal Writers' Project. Virginia: A Guide to the Old Dominion. US History Publishers, 1952. p366
- ^ Alexander, Shawn Leigh. An Army of Lions: The Civil Rights Struggle Before the NAACP. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011. p84
- ^ Meier, August. Negro thought in America, 1880–1915: Racial ideologies in the age of Booker T. Washington. Issue 2. University of Michigan Press, 1963. p84
- ^ Burrell, William Patrick. Twenty-five Years History of the Grand Fountain of the United Order of True Reformers, 1881–1905. Grand Fountain, United Order of True Reformers, 1909. p368
- ^ A Negro Exposition, The Minneapolis Journal (Minneapolis, Minnesota) July 23, 1903, page 10. Retrieved December 15, 2016, at https://www.newspapers.com/clip/7870460/a_negro_exposition_the_minneapolic/
- ^ Former Minister to Liberia Dead, The Baltimore Sun (Baltimore, Maryland) September 7, 1908, page 11. Retrieved December 15, 2016, at https://www.newspapers.com/clip/7870505/former_minister_to_liberia_dead_the/
- ^ Littlejohn, Jeffrey L., and Charles Howard Ford. Elusive Equality: Desegregation and Resegregation in Norfolk's Public Schools. University of Virginia Press, 2012.