Black History Month Part 4: Two campaigners and the world's first black professional footballer

No 10: Frederick Douglass (above)
1818-1895, campaigner

DOUGLASS’S father was probably his white master on a plantation in Maryland. He was separated from his slave mother, who died when he was seven. Self-educated, he was passed to increasingly brutal slave-owners who tried to break his independent streak with beatings.

In 1838, he escaped and ran to New York where he became a public speaker and campaigner.

In 1846, his campaigning brought him to Britain, and he stayed much of the year with Anna and Ellen Richardson in Summerhill Grove in Newcastle. Fearful that his growing prominence who lead to his “owner” demanding him back, the Quaker Richardsons raised enough money to buy his freedom.

In 1847, he returned to the US and became a hugely influential campaigner. He is the best known African-American leader of the 19th Century and that century’s most photographed American, believing that the camera would dispel racist myths.

No 11: Celestine Edwards (above)
1858-1894, campaigner

WHEN only 12, Celestine escaped from his home island of Dominica, in the West Indies, by becoming a sailor. He sailed to Edinburgh, and then came down to Sunderland to work as a building labourer.

He found a community of Methodists and Quakers opposed to slavery, and in the 1880s, he discovered his voice as a campaigner. He then went to London to become Britain’s first black newspaper editor, of anti-slavery journals.

In 2020, a plaque in his memory was erected on the bank which stands on the site of the Assembly Hall where he regularly spoke when in Sunderland.

Sunderland City Council's Blue Plaque to Celestine Edwards

No 12: Arthur Wharton (above)
1865-1930, footballer

HIS mother was connected to royalty in his birthplace of Ghana and his father was a wealthy trader with Scottish ancestry, so today Arthur, as the world’s first professional black footballer, would have been guaranteed a financially comfortable life but his story ends sadly in penury.

He came to Darlington in 1884 to train at the Cleveland College, off Milbank Road, to become a Methodist missionary, but in 1885, he entered a sports day at Feethams and found he could run extremely fast – even if he did duck at the end of his first race to avoid breaking the tape.

In 1886 in London, wearing the colours of Darlington Cricket Club, he became the first man in the world to be reliably recorded to have run 100 yards in exactly 10 seconds.

Arthur Wharton with the trophy he won for being the fastest man in the country

He played in goal for the Quakers, where he was an extremely athletic shot-stopper, and he became a local celebrity. He played as an amateur, picking up large expenses, for Preston North End in their run to the FA Cup semi-final, and then in 1889, Rotherham signed him professionally.

He even made one appearance for Sheffield United, making him the first black pro in the First Division.

But his career was dissipating. By choosing a career in sport over one in religion, he seems to have alienated his family in Africa, and he had a difficult relationship with his wife, Emma, perhaps because of his growing relationship with alcohol.

He worked at Edlington colliery near Doncaster, volunteered for service at home during the First World War, but was buried in an unmarked pauper’s grave – a wrong that was righted in 1997.

Now the Arthur Wharton Foundation in Darlington aims to cherish his memory and his trailblazing exploits as the first in a huge and talented line of black professional footballers.

READ MORE:

PART 1: THE FIRST BLACK NORTH EASTERNERS BACK IN ROMAN TIMES

PART 2: THE BARTON SCHOOLBOY AND A FAMOUS BOXER

PART 3: THE FIRST KNOWN DARLINGTONIAN AND THE WOMAN WHO STOWED AWAY FOR FOUR MONTHS TO REACH SOUTH SHIELDS

• Our last three stories tomorrowArthur Wharton and the 1887 Cleveland Challenge Cup won by Darlington FC