"Charles Henry Langston"(3 24,1817-1892)

Was the second of three sons and a daughter born to Lucy Jane Langston a freedwoman of mixed African and Native American descent,and Ralph Quarles,a wealthy White plantation owner.He freed Lucy and their daughter Maria,in 1806,in the course of what was a relationship of 25 years.Ralph also made provisions for his "natural (illegitimate) children to inherit his substantial fortune after his death.Charles gained his freedom in 1834 and 1835 he and his brother Gideon were the first African Americans to attend Oberlin College in Ohio.Two years later established a school in Chillicote,Ohio for African American children.Charles was a member of the Liberty Party and the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society and edited the civil rights journal,Palladium of Liberty (1842-1843).He was also a leader of the National Organization of the Sons of Temperance.Appointed principal of the Columbus Colored School in 1856,he continued to be active in the anti-slavery movement.Charles was a conductor on the Underground Railroad and in 1858 was convicted for breaking the Fugitive Slave Act.Early in the Civil War in 1862,Charles moved to Leavenworth,Kansas,where he organized a school for contraband's,escaped slaves,who had fled the Union lines from Missouri.He taught the children for about three years.In 1863,Charles returned to Ohio raised its first regiment.By 1865, about 2,455 Afrcan Americans nearly one-fifth of those in Kansas lived in Leavenworth,close to Missouri.In 1865,Charles was appointed general superintendent for refugees and freedmen for the freedmen's Bureau in Kansas.There were more than 12,000 African Americans in Kansas by then.In 1868,Charles moved near Lawrence,Kansas,where he purchased a farm.In 1872,he was appointed as president of Quindaro Freedman's School (later Western University) near Kansas City.