Abolitionist and Former Slave Honored by Heidelberg University

Enlarge image James W. C. Pennington (© public domain) In 1849, James W. C. Pennington became the first African American to be awarded an honorary degree from a European University when Heidelberg University conferred on him the honorary doctorate of divinity. This was no commonplace accolade, though. Pennington was a former slave—still considered a fugitive under US law—who had studied at Yale and become an ordained minister. The distinction from Heidelberg not only raised his prominence in the abolitionist movement  in the US, but it also was seen as a positive tool for the foundering cause of German liberalism, according to Heidelberg assistant professor Dr. Mischa Honeck.

US Abolitionist Meets German Theologian

James W. C. Pennington was born a slave on an estate in western Maryland in 1807, working as a blacksmith. He escaped bondage as a young man, fleeing north, and was able to educate himself, becoming the first African American to attend classes at Yale. He was eventually ordained as a Presbyterian minister. In 1849, he published the account of his harrowing escape in the book The Fugitive Blacksmith, or Events in the History of James W. C. Pennington. With his oratory and literary skill, Pennington became a leading voice for the abolitionist movement in the US and abroad, along with another former slave from Maryland, Frederick Douglass.

Enlarge image Friedrich Wilhelm Carové (© public domain) During the same period, on the other side of the Atlantic, Heidelberg theologian Friedrich Wilhelm Carové  was a democratic activist and a leader in the international peace movement, having long been a champion of liberal causes and even spoken out against xenophobia and anti-Semitism. He was active in the 1848 Revolutions, and in that year helped author the first German proclamation demanding the worldwide abolition of slavery, according to Honeck.

The paths of these two fellow activists crossed auspiciously in 1849 at the World Peace Congress in Paris. Carové was serving as vice president of the Congress and Pennington had been invited to take part  in the convention as a delegate. Pennington was there to draw attention to and win support for the abolitionist cause.

Carové was impressed by Pennington and his message and saw the potential to not only help his cause but also to further the democratic liberal movement in Germany. In Heidelberg he was able to win approval for the honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Theology.

 Pennington wanted to call attention to this distinction in Europe and the US. In a letter to the editor published in the British Banner newspaper, he said he received the honor on behalf of black people: “in this view I accept of it in behalf of the Negro Race throughout the world, and especially in America, where we are, at this moment, passing through a crisis, and maintaining a conflict of the most fearful character, where our opponents are attempting to doom us to eternal bondage upon Biblical authority.”