Gurley, Ralph Randolph

▪ American abolitionist

born May 26, 1797, Lebanon, Conn., U.S.

died July 30, 1872, Washington, D.C.

      for 50 years an administrator (secretary, then vice president, and finally director for life) and spokesman of the American Colonization Society, a group established to transfer freeborn blacks and emancipated slaves in the United States to overseas colonies or client states. In 1824 he visited what is now Liberia, drew up a plan of government for the society's settlement there, and coined the names of the new country and its capital, Monrovia. For 25 years he edited the society's periodical, African Repository.

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