James William Charles Pennington (c. 1807 – October 22, 1870) was an American historian, abolitionist, orator, minister, writer, and social organizer. Pennington is the first Black student known to have attended Yale University. He was ordained as a minister in the Congregational Church, later also serving in Presbyterian churches for congregations in Hartford, Connecticut, and New York. After the Civil War, he served congregations in Natchez, Mississippi, Portland, Maine, and Jacksonville, Florida. In the Antebellum period, Pennington was an abolitionist, and among the American delegates to the Second World Conference on Slavery in London.