gs of that grand moral conflict.

In cooeperation with wealthy abolitionists whose purse strings were
wont to be loosed at the call of humanity, he assisted in enabling
many a slave to see the light of freedom. Several were taken by him to
the Plymouth Church in Brooklyn, which under the inspiration of Henry
Ward Beecher, the fearless champion of the cause, contributed
liberally toward the succor of the oppressed. In 1850, fifteen years
after the formation of the Vigilance Committee of the city of New
York, of which Theodore S. Wright was president, the New York State
Committee was formed with a plan and object similar to those of the
more local organizations. Of this new association Gerrit Smith was
president and Ray, a member of the executive board as well as
corresponding secretary, an office he held also in the older society.
While Ray was not every time the moving spirit of these organizations,
he figured largely in carrying out the plans agreed upon by these
bodies. In the discharge of the trust committed to his hands he
usually acquitted himself with an honorable record.[3]

In advancing the anti-slavery cause, Ray was among the first to work
with the circle of radical free Negroes who, through the conventions
of the free people of color meeting in Philadelphia and in other
cities of the North from 1830 until the Civil War,[4] did much to make
the freedman stand out as worthy objects of the philanthropy of the
anti-slavery societies. During this period the American Colonization
Society was doing its best to convince free Negroes of their lack of
opportunity in this country to induce them to try their fortunes in
Africa and because of the rapidity with which some free Negroes
yielded to this heresy, there was a strong probability that the
anti-slavery movement might be weakened by such adherence to faith in
colonization to the extent that the ardor of the militant
abolitionists would be considerably dampened. While not among the
first to start the convention movement among Negroes, Ray in the
course of time became one of its most ardent supporters and no
convention of the free people of color was considered complete without
him.

His career as a journalist in connection with _The Colored American_
was highly creditable. This paper was established in 1837 as the
_Weekly Advocate_ with Samuel E. Cornish as editor and Phillip A. Bell
as proprietor. After two months it was decided to change the name of
the publica