After his father died when he was four, Day went to live with J. P. Williston and his wife who ensured that he received a good education and learned the printer's trade.

He fought for civil rights of African Americans a number of ways, as a journalist, teacher, and leader of the Freedmen's Bureau.

He was an orator, making a speech to 10,000 newly emancipated people on what biographer Todd Mealy called the first march on Washington.

[1] Eliza was an abolitionist and a founding member of the first African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in New York City.

[2] Eliza Ann Dixon Day was active in the abolitionist movement and was present in 1833 at the Chatham Street Chapel when an anti-abolitionist mob attacked the meeting.

[2] White abolitionists John Payson Williston and his wife of Northampton, Massachusetts, became Day's guardians in 1838.

[8] Published in Cleveland, Ohio, Day used the newspaper to support the abolitionist cause, as in this excerpt from April 9, 1853: "We speak for Humanity.

[4] In 1858, Day was elected president of the National Board of Commissioners of the Colored People by the Black citizens of Canada and the United States.

[4] The same year, he was a member of the Chatham Vigilance Committee that sought to prevent former slaves from being returned to the United States and brought back into slavery, such as the case of Sylvanus Demarest.

[11] In 1859 he visited England, Ireland, and Scotland with William King to raise money for a church and school house at Elgia in Buxton, Ontario.

He met Martin Delany and Professor Campbell of the Institute for Colored Youth in London, and together the group founded the African Aid Society.

[10] After working in Baltimore as inspector-general of the schools, Day moved to Wilmington, Delaware, in 1869 to register African-American voters, a hazardous assignment given the tensions of the time period.

They gathered on the White House's back lawn, where they heard him say: "We meet to celebrate new hopes, new prospects, new joys and in view of the nation.

In 1878 he was elected to the school board of directors at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, serving for three years and holding the position of secretary to the committee on teachers.