Without Regard to Race: The Other Martin Robison Delany

Abstract

This is a “deconstructive” (p. xxv) biography of what Tunde Adeleke considers Martin Delany's integrationist period, namely, all but ten years of his life. Delany (1812–1885) was a publisher, abolitionist, emigrationist, soldier, physician, politician, and more. Adeleke thinks that most existing Delany scholarship erroneously regards Delany as an icon of black nationalism. Delany, he says, can equally be considered the “granddaddy [of] compromisers and accommodationists” (p. xxxiii) such as Booker T. Washington and Clarence Thomas. Delany's nationalism, he says, lasted only one decade (1852–1862). He therefore focuses on Delany's supposed three integrationist phases. This scheme excludes Delany's formative years, his suggested nationalist years, and two years (1850 and 1851) that are curiously unaccounted for. These expurgated years are not unimportant, for they include Delany's sojourn at Harvard University, where he was expelled for reasons of race. Adeleke blames the alleged errors of other scholars on the willful attempt of mostly black civil rights and black power-era historians to subvert the integrity of the historical profession. “Civil rights historiography,” he asserts, “emphasized practical utilitarian application” over “the narration of events and recording of factual information” (p. 6). His constant repetition of these assertions never extends to any systematic effort to identify or evaluate these errant historians.