Andrew Harris (abolitionist)

Straying from Burlington, Vermont, during the winter of 1836–1837, Harris found work and community in Troy, New York. He taught at a Black school, served as secretary of a local African American reform society, spoke at a racially integrated meeting of the local Female Benevolent Society, and acted as secretary of a “Union Meeting of the Colored People of Albany, Troy and Vicinity," calling for collective action among the Capital Region's African Americans. Harris's lectures and sermons stressed education, temperance, moral conduct, and self-improvement among African Americans.^[1]

After graduation, Harris moved to New York City and then to Philadelphia, where he quickly became a prominent activist and speaker in African American and abolitionist circles and befriended Daniel Alexander Payne and Theodore S. Wright. On May 7, 1839, he spoke at the American Anti-Slavery Society annual meeting. His address was reprinted in The Emancipator and received high praise from abolitionists of all races. A delegate to the first convention of the Liberty Party, Harris supported political action to end slavery and opposed the resettlement of African Americans in Liberia. He was ordained a minister on April 15, 1841, and assumed pastoral duties for the Second African Presbyterian Church on St. Mary Street in Philadelphia.^[1][2]

Harris's promising career as a clergyman and activist was cut short when he fell ill with a fever in November 1841 and died on December 1, 1841, at the age of 27. His obituary ran in about a dozen newspapers across Pennsylvania, New York, and New England, including The Liberator, The Colored American, The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Rochester Daily Democrat, the Boston Atlas, and the New-York Commercial Advertiser.^[1]

The University of Vermont recognized Harris as its first Black graduate in 2014 (prior to 2004, George Washington Henderson was believed to have been the university's first Black graduate).^[4] In 2015, the Vermont Division for Historic Preservation placed a historical marker dedicated to Harris on the UVM campus in Burlington. Criticized for initially placing the marker in low-traffic locations on campus, UVM moved the marker to the exterior of the Dudley H. Davis Center. In 2018, UVM established the Andrew Harris Commons, an open-air campus space with marble monuments in Harris's honor. In addition, UVM has established the Andrew Harris Scholarship to support students of color and the Andrew Harris Fellowship to support faculty of color.^[3][5]