Thomas James (1804–1891) had been a slave who became an African Methodist Episcopal Zion minister, abolitionist, administrator and author.
While in Massachusetts, he challenged the railroad's custom of forcing blacks into second-class carriages and won a reversal of the rule in the State Supreme Court.
[3] Assigned to a small black congregation in Syracuse, New York, in 1835, James attracted new members and founded the AME Zion Church.
[4] Beginning in 1830, James was influenced by the abolitionism of some members of the American Colonization Society (ACS) and writings by Arthur Tappan.
[6] He contributed to the growing anti-slavery movement in Syracuse and efforts to help escaped slaves on the "Freedom Trail".
For example, while returning to the state by train, he met a young slave girl named Lucy, traveling with her slaveowners from Richmond, Virginia.
In the following court case held in Boston, the judge announced that according to the laws of Massachusetts, which prohibited slavery, Lucy was free and had the choice of whether to claim that freedom.
[6] While in Boston, James was actively involved in cases dealing with escaped slaves, such as Anthony Burns and Ellen and William Craft.
[citation needed] James also successfully challenged the custom of assigning blacks to second class on railroads and other transportation.
When the railroad case was heard on appeal by the State Supreme Court in Boston, "the court decided that the word "color," as applied to persons, was unknown to the laws of the commonwealth of Massachusetts, and that the youngest colored child had the same rights as the richest white citizen.
He helped supervise the contraband camps, liberated slaves who were being held illegally by traders, and monitored d visited the prisons.
The continuing unsettled state of southern sympathizers was shown by James' being threatened in Darke County by Regulators, one of the insurgent groups active after the war.
[6] In 1880, when the exodus from the South to the West began, James worked with the Topeka Relief Association to help the thousands of black migrants arriving in Kansas, who were known as the Exodusters.
The following year, James worked with others in southern Kansas to organize the Agricultural and Industrial Institute (later merged with Pittsburg State University).
Thomas James: Death of the Aged Colored Clergy-Man of This City” in Rochester Union and Advertiser, printed April 18, 1891.
Another daughter (mother unknown) was Eliza James (1845–1896), who went with her father in 1862 to Louisville, Kentucky,[11] and served as a nurse during the Civil War.
[12] US Census records show she married Benjamin Thomas in 1867, had nine children, and lived near her father in Rochester.
He wrote: "My wife was a slave, freed by Sherman at the capture of Atlanta and sent north with other colored refugees.
President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation freed all slaves in Confederate territory behind Union lines.