Delany << duh LAY nee >>, Martin Robison (1812-1885), was an African American Army officer, physician, journalist, and social reformer. He was trained as a physician at Harvard University. He practiced medicine occasionally in Pittsburgh but spent most of his time fighting against the institution of slavery. He worked for the Underground Railroad, a system for helping enslaved people escape to the North before the American Civil War (1861-1865). He also wrote for an abolitionist newspaper owned by the African American crusader Frederick Douglass. In the 1850’s, Delany joined a movement that urged free Black people to move to Africa. However, he later lost his enthusiasm for this “back-to-Africa” movement.
Delany served as a Union Army surgeon during the Civil War. In 1865, he became the first African American army officer to earn the rank of major.
Delany was born on May 6, 1812, in Charles Town, West Virginia (then part of Virginia). He died on Jan. 24, 1885.
