Theodore S. Wright

Rev. Theodore Sedgwick Wright

Theodore S. Wright (1797-1847) was an African-American abolitionist and minister. He was born in Providence, Rhode Island to free parents—his mother was American, his father from Kenya. He was the first African-American to attend Princeton Theological Seminary, from which he graduated in 1829. Before 1833, he became minister of New York's Colored Presbyterian church. He was a founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society. In 1837, at a colored convention meeting, he opposed a resolution advocating black self-defense as "un-Christian," but by 1843 his views had sufficiently changed that he supported Henry Highland Garnet's call at Buffalo for a slave uprising (it was opposed by Frederick Douglass and narrowly defeated). Wright also acted as a conductor for the Underground Railroad in New York.