James Monroe Gregory (January 23, 1849 – December 17, 1915) was an American professor of Latin, and dean at Howard University.

In 1897, he was removed at Howard and moved to New Jersey where he became principal of Bordentown Industrial and Manual Training School.

During his summer vacations, Gregory taught at Freedmen's Bureau schools in La Porte, in Mt.

[1] As his studies ended, he was recommended for a cadetship at West Point by General Benjamin F. Butler, but President Andrew Johnson refused to appoint him.

[2] When Gregory started at Howard in September 1868, he was the first student in the collegiate department, which had two professors, Eliphalet Whittlesey and William F. Bascom, and the course was based on classical studies of New England colleges.

In the course of the dispute, Gregory and George T. Downing discovered that a law before the U.S. House of Representatives creating separate schools for black children.

The group gathered about it many leading civil rights figures, having Frederick Douglass as president, Richard T. Greener as secretary, and also including Frederick G. Barbadoes, John F. Cook, Francis James Grimké, Milton M. Holland, Wiley Lane, William H. Smith, Purvis, Downing, and Gregory.

He was a leader of the 1883 National Convention of Colored Men in Louisville, Kentucky, where Gregory was elected temporary and then permanent secretary and fellow DC Delegate Frederick Douglass was made president.

[2] In 1893, Gregory published a biography of Frederick Douglass entitled, Frederick Douglass the Orator: Containing an Account of His Life; His Eminent Public Services; His Brilliant Career as Orator; Selections from His Speeches and Writings.. Gregory was also very active in politics.

Gregory was president of the American Association of Educators of Colored Youth which was he founded in 1890[9] and led throughout its existence.

[11] In 1891, Gregory was in debt and was accused by Daniel Murray and a group of other individuals of inappropriate financial dealings with his students, but the charges were dropped.

The school was based on the methods Booker T. Washington advocated and applied at the Tuskegee Institute[16] Gregory served until February, 1915.

Fannie's mother, Margaret A. Hagen, was born and raised on the property of Judge Roger B. Taney and had been freed by the purchase of her husband.

[22] His great-grandson through James Francis was astronaut Frederick Drew Gregory, the first African-American to pilot an American spacecraft.

With Gregory in the congregation were Douglass, John Mercer Langston, Blanche Bruce, and William T. Mitchell and their families.