African American intellectual Martin Robinson Delany (1812-1885), a journalist, physician, army officer, politician, and judge, is best known for his promotion before the Civil War of a national home in Africa for African Americans.

Martin Delany was born free in Charlestown, Virginia, on May 6, 1812. His parents traced their ancestry to West African royalty. In 1822 the family moved to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, to find a better racial climate, and at the age of 19 Martin attended an African American school in Pittsburgh. He married Kate Richards there in 1843; they had 11 children.

In 1843 Delany founded one of the earliest African American newspapers, the Mystery, devoted particularly to the abolition of slavery. Proud of his African ancestry, Delany advocated unrestricted equality for African Americans, and he participated in conventions to protest slavery. Frederick Douglass, the leading African American abolitionist, made him coeditor of his newspaper, the North Star, in 1847. But Delany left in...