William Demosthenes Crum

William Demosthenes Crum, alternatively known as William Demos Crum, (February 9, 1859 – December 7, 1912) was an American physician and diplomat.

Biography

Crum was born on February 9, 1859, in Charleston, South Carolina. He was born a free man of color, the youngest of seven children, between Darius Crum, a German American, and Charlotte C. Crum, a free woman of color. He grew up on his father's plantation which used forty-three slaves prior to the end of the Civil War. He would graduate valedictorian of his class from the Avery Normal Institute in 1875. He would receive a medical degree from Howard University in 1881 before returning to Charleston and working at the McClennan Hospital and Training School for Nurses. He would go on to marry Ellen Crum, the daughter of fugitive slave abolitionists William and Ellen Craft, who would later be a founder of the National Federation of Afro-American Women. His career as a physician would also take off, noted for his work in the field of diagnostics and his studying of tuberculosis.

As he worked in the hospital, Crum would become involved with politics, even serving as the chairman of the county Republican Party for more than two decades. He would make ties and friendships with several prominent African Americans such as Whitefield Mckinlay, Harry C. Smith, T. Thomas Fortune, and most notably Booker T. Washington.