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.