Civil Rights Activist. The widely respected African-American sexton of the First Baptist Church in Hackensack, New Jersey, Samuel Bass had requested to be buried in local Hackensack Cemetery. When he died in 1884, however, his body was refused interment there on the basis of race. During the public outcry which followed, newly-elected Governor Leon Abbett (Democrat, 1884-87; 1890-93) championed Bass's cause, and prevailed upon the New Jersey State Legislature to pass the "Negro Burial Bill" of 1884, which made such discrimination illegal. The revered sexton was originally buried here in Gethsemane, an African-American cemetery which had been established in 1860, but the Bass family later had his remains removed to Philadelphia, the "City of Brotherly Love" which had formerly been his home.
Civil Rights Activist. The widely respected African-American sexton of the First Baptist Church in Hackensack, New Jersey, Samuel Bass had requested to be buried in local Hackensack Cemetery. When he died in 1884, however, his body was refused interment there on the basis of race. During the public outcry which followed, newly-elected Governor Leon Abbett (Democrat, 1884-87; 1890-93) championed Bass's cause, and prevailed upon the New Jersey State Legislature to pass the "Negro Burial Bill" of 1884, which made such discrimination illegal. The revered sexton was originally buried here in Gethsemane, an African-American cemetery which had been established in 1860, but the Bass family later had his remains removed to Philadelphia, the "City of Brotherly Love" which had formerly been his home.
Bio by: Nikita Barlow
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Records on Ancestry
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