David Jenkins (abolitionist)

{{Short description|American abolitionist and politician}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2025}}

David Jenkins (c. 1811 – September 4, 1876){{Cite web|url=https://much-ado.net/legislators/legislators/david-jenkins/jenkins5/|title=American Citizen, September 9, 1876 – Against All Odds}} was an abolitionist, civil rights campaigner, newspaper founder, and politician in Columbus, Ohio and Mississippi.{{cite journal |id={{ProQuest|1296735759}} |last1=Levstik |first1=Frank R |title=DAVID JENKINS: EAGLE THAT IS FORGOTTON |journal=Negro History Bulletin |volume=38 |issue=7 |date=October 1975 |pages=464 }} He served as a state legislator in the Mississippi House of Representatives.{{Cite web|url=https://much-ado.net/legislators/legislators/david-jenkins/|title=David Jenkins – Against All Odds}} He was a Republican.{{Cite web|url=https://much-ado.net/legislators/legislators/david-jenkins/jenkins14/|title=Cincinnati Enquirer, January 25, 1872 – Against All Odds|website=much-ado.net}} He represented Madison County, Mississippi.{{Cite web|url=https://much-ado.net/legislators/legislators/david-jenkins/jenkins4/|title=Clarion-Ledger, January 7, 1877 – Against All Odds|website=much-ado.net}}

He was an agent on the Underground Railroad. At age 26 he moved to Columbus, Ohio. An abolitionist, he co-founded a short-lived abolitionist paper in Columbus. He then became a school teacher. During the Civil War he served in the 127th Ohio Infantry. After the war he worked for the Freedmens Bureau in Mississippi.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SWusBwAAQBAJ&dq=david+jenkins+canton+mississippi&pg=PA290|title=The Underground Railroad: An Encyclopedia of People, Places, and Operations|first=Mary Ellen|last=Snodgrass|date=March 26, 2015|publisher=Routledge|isbn=9781317454168 |via=Google Books}}

In 1876 he voted against impeachment of T. W. Cardozo.{{Cite web|url=https://much-ado.net/legislators/legislators/w-h-jones/imp/|title=Clarion Ledger, February 17, 1876 – Against All Odds}}

He and Alfred Handy, another African American state legislator for Madison County, were warned about opposing "honest rule" in a notice run in the Canton Mail in 1876.{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QbUTAAAAYAAJ&dq=david+jenkins+canton+mississippi&pg=PA277|title=Mississippi: Testimony as to Denial of Elective Franchise in Mississippi at the Elections of 1875 and 1876: Taken Under the Resolution of the Senate of December 5, 1876|first=United States Congress Senate Committee on Privileges and|last=Elections|date=October 14, 1877|publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office|via=Google Books}}

He died in Canton, Mississippi.