Forten, James (1766-1842)

US sailmaker and social activist. He made money in the sail-making industry and became a leader of the Philadelphia black community. Active in promoting temperance and peace, he was devoted to abolishing slavery and gaining the civil rights of black Americans.

A free black American, he was born in Philadelphia. He was apprenticed as a sailmaker and, on the death of his boss, took control of the sail loft. In 1814, he helped enlist 2,500 black American volunteers to protect Philadelphia during the War of 1812. He opposed the American Colonization Society and its plans to send blacks out of the USA. He provided financial support to William Lloyd Garrison's paper, The Liberator, and refused to sell rigging to slave-trade vessels. Although all but forgotten in ensuing decades, he was arguably the most extraordinary black American of his era.