George T. Downing (December 30, 1819 – July 21, 1903) was an abolitionist and activist for African-American civil rights while building a successful career as a restaurateur in New York City; Newport, Rhode Island; and Washington, D.C. His father had been an oyster seller and caterer in Philadelphia and New York City, building a business that attracted wealthy white clients.

Late in his life he returned to Rhode Island, where he continued as a community leader and civil rights activist.

His father Thomas was born in 1791 in Chincoteague, Virginia, to parents who had been freed from slavery when their master, John Downing, a prominent planter, converted to Methodism.

Thomas grew up learning about refined tastes from guests hosted by John Downing at his own house, near the land his parents were given.

[2] Thomas Downing left Virginia as a young man and went north to Philadelphia, where he met and married Rebecca West, a free black.

[2] The senior Downing at first cultivated oyster beds in the Jersey flats, but by 1825 he purchased an eating establishment in the basement at 5 Broad Street in Manhattan.

He gradually expanded into other spaces on that block, and developed a refined oyster house with dishes to appeal to the powerful white men of business and finance in that area of the city.

[3] Downing was known to have sent some American oysters to Queen Victoria, in recognition of which she sent a gold chronometer watch to Thomas in the care of Commodore Joseph Comstock.

[6] His father's prominence in New York afforded George many unique experiences; for instance, he met Lafayette when the patriot toured the states during Downing's boyhood.

[4] Classmates involved in the society included Philip Bell, Alexander Crummell, James McCune Smith, and Henry Highland Garnet, all of whom became leaders as adults.

Serena had attended Clinton Seminary in Oneida County, New York, and was friends with the daughter of Gerrit Smith, through whom she met Downing.

Her father was George de Grasse, born in Calcutta, India, about 1780 and originally named Azar Le Guen.

He is believed to have been the natural, mixed-race son of François Joseph Paul de Grasse, a career French naval officer who was in the city intermittently, and an Indian woman.

[9] The senior de Grasse was promoted to admiral in 1781, and commanding the French fleet in the west, was a naval hero of the American Revolution, conducting a blockade in the Chesapeake Bay that led to the British surrender in 1781 at Yorktown.

Serena's eldest brother was Isaiah DeGrasse, who graduated from Newark College (now the University of Delaware) and became a Protestant Episcopal minister.

[12] In the early days of the New York Herald, Downing's father had loaned money to James Gordon Bennett, Sr., helping him keep the paper afloat.

In June 1850, Downing together with Frederick Douglass, Samuel Ward, Lewis Woodson, and others formed the American League of Colored Laborers as a union to organize former slaves working in New York City.

[18] He was also a member of the Committee of Thirteen, which resisted the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850 and aided refugees from slavery pass through the city.

[19] In New York, Downing was an agent of the Underground Railroad, along with Isaac Hopper, Oliver Johnson, Charles B. Ray, David Ruggles, McCune Smith, James W. C. Pennington, and Henry Highland Garnet.

[21] Downing also pushed the Rhode Island legislature to integrate public schools, first financing a campaign of protest starting in 1857, which was finally successful in 1866.

[24] In 1860, Downing with J. S. Martin helped organize a meeting in Boston to celebrate the first anniversary of the death of abolitionist John Brown.

He met with Massachusetts governor John Albion Andrew, and got from him written assurance that black troops would be treated with equality, upon which he took up the work.

Frederick Douglass was chosen as president of the convention, and made some effort to keep the peace between factions which arose around Downing and Garnet.

With the help of Horace Greeley, he led a delegation that met with president Andrew Johnson to push for the support of freedmen and free blacks against postwar violence and repression in the South.

Downing was a Republican for much of his life, but he became more independent during the candidacy for president of James Blaine, whom he felt was soft on civil rights.

The Boston Globe described him as "the foremost colored man in the country", praising his work for human liberty; it said in an editorial that "Narrowness was never safe where George T. Downing was present.