February is Black History Month. Sarah Parker Remond (1824-1894), was a “daughter of the most prominent African American family in Salem, Massachusetts”. She sailed for Liverpool, England, in the fall of 1858. The Civil War inevitable, she agreed to a speaking tour “describing the horrors of American chattel slavery”. The tour was part of the campaign to galvanize British antislavery sentiment by arguing the ethical and economic case for British support of the Union. Between 1859 and 1861, Remond delivered forty five (45) lectures in seventeen (17) British towns and cities throughout England, Ireland and Scotland “to considerable acclaim and extensive press coverage on both sides of the Atlantic.” A southern bureaucrat American in the American delegation refused to issue her the proper visa, maintaining that Remond was not an American citizen. But, then Secretary of State Lewis Cass intervened and ordered the issuance of the proper visa. Redmond later studied at the Bedford College for Women … now the University of London.
Until the conclusion of the war she continued her studies in conjunction with her lecture tours. She later went on to become a doctor, practicing medicine in Rome. She was regarded by those who knew her as a bright, elegant and refined woman of substance and perseverance.
