Sarah Parker Remond(1824 — 1894)
Sarah Parker Remond
États-Unis
8 min read
African American abolitionist and suffragist activist of the nineteenth century. She traveled across Europe to raise public awareness of the anti-slavery cause, and settled in Italy where she became a physician.
Frequently asked questions
Key Facts
- Born in 1824 in Salem, Massachusetts, into a free African American family committed to the fight against slavery
- From 1856 onward, she embarked on a lecture tour of Great Britain and Ireland to mobilize European opinion against American slavery
- She was one of the first African American women to earn a medical degree, in Florence in 1868
- She settled permanently in Italy, where she practiced as a physician until her death in 1894
- She also campaigned for women's right to vote, weaving together abolitionist and suffragist struggles
Works & Achievements
A series of dozens of public lectures delivered across Great Britain, Ireland, and Scotland, in which Sarah bore witness to the realities of American slavery. Her talks helped shape British public opinion against the Southern Confederacy.
Medical training completed in Florence, culminating in a diploma in 1868. Sarah thereby became one of the first African American women to earn a recognized medical qualification in Europe.
For more than twenty years, Sarah Parker Remond practiced as a physician in Rome, treating an international clientele and embodying, for generations to come, the possibility of dual intellectual and professional achievement for Black women.
Sarah signed and contributed to petitions addressed to the American and European governments calling for the abolition of slavery and the non-recognition of the Confederacy, demonstrating the diplomatic reach of her activism.
Anecdotes
In 1853, Sarah Parker Remond purchased a ticket to a concert at the Howard Athenæum in Boston, only to be refused entry because of her race. Far from being intimidated, she took the matter to court and won, receiving $500 in damages — a rare victory for a Black woman in pre-war America.
From 1858 onward, Sarah criss-crossed the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Scotland, speaking before hundreds of audiences to denounce American slavery. Her lectures were so compelling that several historians believe she helped prevent Britain from granting diplomatic recognition to the Confederate South during the Civil War.
After the Civil War, Sarah did not return to the United States. She enrolled in the medical school affiliated with the Santa Maria Nuova hospital in Florence, Italy, and earned her degree in 1868, becoming one of the first African American women to practice medicine in Europe.
Born into a free Black family in Salem, Massachusetts, Sarah grew up in a household deeply committed to the abolitionist cause. Her brother Charles Lenox Remond was already a celebrated anti-slavery orator before she took to the stage, and the entire family was active within the American Anti-Slavery Society.
After completing her studies, Sarah Parker Remond settled in Rome, where she practiced medicine for decades and married an Italian citizen, Lazzaro Pintor, in 1877. She lived in the Eternal City until her death in 1894 and was buried in the Protestant cemetery of Testaccio.
Primary Sources
Miss Remond spoke for nearly two hours on the condition of the enslaved population of the Southern States, dwelling particularly on the sufferings of women held in bondage, and was greeted throughout with the closest attention and warm applause.
Miss Remond is among the most effective advocates of the anti-slavery cause we have had among us; her testimony as a free coloured woman from America carries an authority no white lecturer could match.
Sarah Parker Remond addressed a large and sympathetic audience at the Rotunda, urging British and Irish citizens to use all moral influence to prevent recognition of the Southern Confederacy by European powers.
We learn that our friend Miss S. P. Remond continues her labours in England with great acceptance; her lectures in the principal towns have been numerously attended and have done much to enlighten the British public.
Key Places
Sarah Parker Remond's birthplace in 1824. The Remond family was well established in Salem's free African American community, and the city was the cradle of her abolitionist commitment.
Sarah's main base during her European lecture tours from 1858 onward. She forged close ties with British abolitionist and Quaker circles there and attended courses at Bedford College for Women.
A key stop on her European tour, where she delivered several widely acclaimed lectures. Ireland, itself marked by oppression and famine, received her message with particular empathy.
The city where Sarah Parker Remond pursued her medical studies at the Santa Maria Nuova hospital, earning her diploma in 1868. Florence represents her reinvention and her definitive emancipation.
The city where Sarah settled permanently to practice medicine, married in 1877, and died in 1894. She is buried in the Protestant Cemetery of Testaccio.
