Parker Pillsbury
From Philosopedia
Pillsbury, Parker (22 September 1809 – 1898)
The Massachusetts-born Pillsbury was an American reformer who, after being educated at Gilmanton and Andover Theological Seminaries, became a Congregational minister for one year.
He perceived that the churches were the bulwark of slavery and abandoned the ministry. He became an abolitionist lecturer, edited the Concord, New Hampshire, Herald of Freedom, the New York National Anti-Slavery Standard, and collaborated with Elizabeth Cady Stanton as co-editor of the Revolution, which was published by Susan B. Anthony. Early feminist Pauline Wright Davis lauded Pillsbury for his "good deeds and unselfish work."
In a 5 December 1850 letter in The North Star, he wrote,
- The Methodist Discipline provides for "separate Colored Conferences." The Episcopal church shuts out some of its own most worthy ministers from clerical recognition, on account of their color. Nearly all denominations of religionists have either a written or unwritten law to the same effect. In Boston, even, there are Evangelical churches whose pews are positively forbidden by corporate mandate from being sold to any but "respectable white persons." Our incorporated cemeteries are often, if not always, deeded in the same manner. Even our humblest village grave yards generally have either a "negro corner," or refuse colored corpses altogether; and did our power extend to heaven or hell, we should have complexional salvation and colored damnation, . .
Pillsbury preached for free religious societies. His principal work is Acts of the Anti-Slavery Apostles (1883). The Church as It Is (1884) contains his non-Christian views on theism, as does his autobiography.
