James McCune Smith Magnet

"Let us seek some day when some enslaved black in our own land [has] swelled beyond the measure of his chains and won liberty or death," cried James McCune Smith on August 1, 1839. The son of an enslaved father and a self-emancipated bondswoman, Smith grew up in New York City. Denied admission by American medical schools, he sailed for Scotland in 1832. He studied medicine at the University of Glasgow-and became the first African American to earn a medical degree.

Smith returned home in 1837 ready to fight for emancipation and black pride, and until his death in 1865, was the acknowledged intellectual leader of New York City's African American community. He practiced medicine for 25 years while devoting himself to abolition. Smith contributed to abolitionist publications, joined anti-slavery societies, and wrote medical articles debunking arguments of black racial inequality. He strongly opposed resettlement of blacks to Africa and favored emancipation through the use of force, if necessary. During the Civil War, he served with honor as a doctor.