Theodore Sedgwick Wright (1797–1847), sometimes Theodore Sedgewick Wright, was an African-American abolitionist and minister who was active in New York City, where he led the First Colored Presbyterian Church as its second pastor. He was the first African American to attend Princeton Theological Seminary (and any United States theological seminary), from which he graduated in 1828 or 1829. In 1833 he became a founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, an interracial group that included Samuel Cornish, a Black Presbyterian, and many Congregationalists, and served on its executive committee until 1840.

Wright founded and helped develop the American Anti-slavery Society, the Union Missionary Society, and the American Missionary Association. Wright was a prominent activist, and in contributing to these organizations gave frequent speeches and was successful in his endeavors, contributing greatly to the anti-slave movement. At age 50, Wright died from possible exhaustion. He was an influential person who was passionate about the development of youth, first-rate education, spreading the gospel, and abolishing slavery.

Early life and education

Theodore Sedgwick Wright was born about 1797 to free parents in Providence, Rhode Island. He is believed to have moved into New York City with his family, where he attended the African Free School. At the age of 28, he was admitted to American Institute of higher learning, becoming the second man of color ever to be admitted to the institute.

With the aid of Governor DeWitt Clinton and Arthur Tappan of the New York Manumission Society, and men from Princeton Theological Seminary, Wright was aided in his studies at the graduate seminary. for race relations, in which the white faculty and students were united behind the American Colonization Society's efforts to remove free Black and enslaved Black Americans to Liberia. When John Brown Russwurm in Freedom's Journal combatted Wright's professor Archibald Alexander's support of colonization, Wright said the "united views and intentions of the people of color were made known, and the nation awoke as from slumber".) He followed the founder, Samuel Cornish.

In 1833 Wright was a founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, which had an interracial membership and leadership. He served on the executive committee until 1840. That year he left with other moderate members, including Arthur and Lewis Tappan, and helped found the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. They disagreed with some of William Lloyd Garrison's proposals, including his insistence on having women in leadership positions.

For years Wright acted as a conductor for the Underground Railroad in New York City and used his house at 235 W. Broadway as a station. He served on New York's Committee of Vigilance, established to try to help fugitive slaves evade slave catchers and resist their being returned to the South. Morrison's work was cited in James H. Moorhead's 2012 Princeton Theological Seminary in American Religion and Culture.

In October 2021, as part of a "multi-year action plan to repent for [its] historical ties to slavery," Princeton Theological Seminary renamed its library the Theodore Sedgwick Wright Library.

References

Further reading

  • Rayford W. Logan and Michael R. Winston, eds., Dictionary of American Negro Biography (New York: W. W. Norton, 1982)
  • Bertram Wyatt-Brown, “American Abolitionism and Religion”, National Humanities Center.
  • "Theodore S. Wright", Black Abolitionist Archive, at University of Detroit Mercy; contains texts of numerous published speeches