Alphonso Sumner

Alphonso M. Sumner was an African American man who opened Nashville, Tennessee's first Black school. Sumner was also a barber, a newspaper publisher, and a Northern abolitionist.

Early life and Nashville school In the early 1830s, Sumner lived in Nashville, where he worked as a free Black barber.

Legacy Although Sumner was forced into exile, the foundation he laid in Nashville persisted. His former assistant, Daniel Wadkins, reopened a school in 1838, continuing the tradition of "clandestine" education for Nashville's Black population until the mid-1850s.