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George Thomas Downing
1819 - 1903
Name: George Thomas Downing
Birthplace: New York
Status: Free Person of Color
Occupation/Training: Hamilton College
Residence: New York, Newport, RI
Abolitionist Involvement: George Thomas Downing was born in 1819 in New York City. He rose to prominence and became one of the leading business men, and Civil Rights activists of his time.
From the late 1850's to the mid 1860's he led the fight in desegregating the schools in Rhode Island. He is also credited to the appeal of a law in the state of New York requiring Negroes to own $250 worth of property before being entitled to vote. He also influenced the abolishment of a similar law in Rhode Island directed at the Irish population. He participated in removal of a 9 pm curfew for Negroes in Washington DC, the abolition of JimCrow cars on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and the opening of the Senate gallery to Negro citizens.
He had begun purchasing property in Rhode Island, in the 1840's including the old Atlantic House where the US Naval Academy was located for many years. The luscious Sea Girt Hotel was built by him and after it was destroyed by fire in 1860, he erected a building on Downing Block, renting portions of it to the Federal Government. He is one of the primary contributors to the beauty and architecture of Newport Rhode Island.
He died in New York in 1903. At the time of his death the Boston Globe wrote that Downing was, "the foremost colored man in this country....he fought not only for his own race, but that his purse strings were always open in helping all races who were oppressed."
Family: Father--Thomas Downing Mother--Rebecca West Downing
Place of Death: Newport RI
Publications/References: Thomas Downing:Sketch of His Life and Times 1910
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