Trailblazers in Black History: Reverend Peter Williams, Jr

 

Peter Williams, Jr. was an African-American Episcopal priest, the second ordained in the United States, and an abolitionist in New York City. He supported free Black emigration to Haiti, the black republic that had achieved independence in 1804. Later in life he strongly opposed the American Colonization Society's efforts to relocate free Blacks to a colony in Africa.

In 1808 he organized St. Philip's African Church in lower Manhattan, the second Black Episcopal church in the United States. In 1827, he was a co-founder of Freedom's Journal, the first African-American owned and operated newspaper in the United States. 

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Source: Wikipedia