Abraham Lincoln DeMond facts for kids

Abraham Lincoln DeMond (born June 6, 1867 – died January 19, 1936) was an American minister. He worked to help African Americans gain equal rights in the late 1800s and early 1900s. On January 1, 1900, at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, he gave an important speech. It was called The Negro Element in American Life. This speech was his only published work.

DeMond was the first black person to graduate from the State Normal School in Cortland, New York. This school is now known as SUNY Cortland. He later studied to become a minister at Howard University. DeMond served as a pastor in many places. These included Fort Payne, Alabama, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, and churches in Charleston, South Carolina, Buxton, Iowa, and New Orleans.

Early Life and Family

DeMond was born in 1867 in Seneca, New York. His parents were Quam and Phebe DeMond. After studying at Howard University Seminary, he became a pastor. He served churches in New Orleans, Charleston, South Carolina, and Montgomery, Alabama.

He married Lula Watkins Patterson. She was a graduate of Selma University and a music teacher. They had five children. Their children were Ruth DeMond Brooks, Albert Laurence, William Arthur, Charles Gordon, and Marguerite Lula.

DeMond's Important Speech

DeMond's most important contribution was his speech, The Negro Element in American Life. He gave this speech at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. The date was January 1, 1900.

Years later, in the early 1960s, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led the Civil Rights Movement from this same church. Today, the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church is a National Historic Landmark.

What the Speech Was About

In his speech, DeMond looked at the history of African Americans. He used this history to show a path for America's future. He said that the Declaration of Independence and the Emancipation Proclamation were like two strong pillars for the American nation. He believed the Emancipation Proclamation helped fulfill the promises of the Declaration.

DeMond said that the Emancipation Proclamation allowed African Americans to be loyal citizens. He praised black soldiers who fought in the Spanish–American War. He also honored many people who worked to end slavery. These included Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Charles Sumner. He believed these people helped shape the United States.

DeMond thought that American history had three main parts: "the Cavalier, the Puritan and the Negro." He praised African Americans for adding "all that is noblest and best in American life." He connected the ideas of the anti-slavery movement to the idea of American freedom.

Celebrating Freedom Day

January 1st was a special day for African Americans. They celebrated the day President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation became law. The Emancipation Proclamation Association helped publish DeMond's speech as a pamphlet.

DeMond strongly stated that African Americans were fully American. He said they were not African. Because of this, they deserved all the rights of citizens. He described the Declaration of Independence and the Emancipation Proclamation as:

"two great patriotic, wise and humane state papers…Both were born in days of doubt and darkness. Both were the outcome of injustice overleaping the bounds of right and reason. The one was essential to the fulfilling of the other. Without the Declaration of Independence the nation could not have been born; without the Emancipation Proclamation it could not have lived."

Life in Buxton, Iowa

DeMond also served as a minister in Buxton, Iowa, in the early 1900s. Buxton was a very special community. It was started by the Consolidation Coal Company as a company town. It was the largest coal-mining town in Iowa that was not officially a city.

What made Buxton unique was that most of its five thousand residents were African Americans. This was very unusual for Iowa, a state that was over 90 percent white. At a time when black people faced many challenges, those in Buxton had steady jobs. They earned good wages and lived in decent homes. They also experienced very little unfair treatment. Because of these reasons, Buxton was often called "the black man's utopia in Iowa."