African Free School Produces Extraordinary Generation of Black Leaders

New York's African Free Schools, operating since 1787 and educating over 1,400 children by 1815, produced Henry Highland Garnet, Alexander Crummell, Ira Aldridge (the era's greatest Black Shakespearean actor), James McCune Smith (first Black American MD), and Samuel Ringgold Ward. The schools were taken over by the New York Public School Society in 1834.