Bell, Philip Alexander

Life Span
to
    Full name
    Philip Alexander Bell
    Place of Birth
    Birth Date Certainty
    Estimated
    Death Date Certainty
    Exact
    Gender
    Male
    Race
    Black
    Sectional choice
    North
    Origins
    Free State
    Family
    Rebecca Elizabeth Fenwick (wife, 1832)
    Education
    Other
    Other Education
    African Free School, New York, NY
    Occupation
    Journalist
    Other
    Other Occupation
    Real Estate Broker
    Relation to Slavery
    Free black
    Political Parties
    Republican
    Other Affiliations
    Abolitionists (Anti-Slavery Society)
    Temperance (Prohibition)

    Philip Alexander Bell (American National Biography)

    Scholarship
    Bell was a life-long critic of black emigration programs, particularly the proposals by the American Colonization Society to settle free black Americans in Africa. He argued that African Americans should remain in the United States and demand their rights as American citizens. He advocated political action to achieve these rights, and as a leader of the New York Political Association in the 1830s, he urged blacks to organize petition and lobbying campaigns to expand their voting rights. In the 1850s he continued to work for black enfranchisement through the black state conventions and the New York State Suffrage Association.

    Bell's most notable achievement was his pioneering work in the development of the African-American press. His career in journalism spanned over fifty years, beginning in January 1837 when he was editor and proprietor of the New York City Weekly Advocate.
    Michael F. Hembree, "Bell, Philip Alexander," American National Biography Online, February 2000, http://www.anb.org/articles/16/16-00099.html.
    Chicago Style Entry Link
    Penn, Irvine Garland. The Afro-American Press and Its Editors. Springfield, MA: Willey & co., 1891. view record
    How to Cite This Page: "Bell, Philip Alexander," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/5083.