John S. Rock was born to free black parents in Salem, New Jersey in 1825. He attended public schools in New Jersey until he was 19 and then worked as a teacher between 1844 and 1848. During this period Rock began his medical studies with … Read MoreJohn S. Rock (1825-1866)
Image Ownership: Public Domain Jermain Wesley Loguen was born into slavery on February 5, 1813, in Tennessee. His mother was owned by Loguen’s father and master. In 1834, Loguen escaped from bondage and fled to St. Catherine’s, Ontario, where he stayed there briefly before finding … Read MoreJermain Wesley Loguen (1813-1872)
Robert Purvis was born on August 4, 1810 in Charleston, South Carolina, the second of three sons to a wealthy cotton broker and a free woman of color. With the benefits of a financially successful family, Purvis began his opposition to slavery at a very … Read MoreRobert Purvis (1810-1898)
William Still was born in Burlington County, New Jersey in 1821, as the last of eighteen children of former slaves Levin and Charity Still. By 1844, Still moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where he spent the majority of his life and where he was appointed secretary … Read MoreWilliam Still (1821-1902)
William Wells Brown was an African American antislavery lecturer, groundbreaking novelist, playwright and historian. He is widely considered to have been the first African American to publish works in several major literary genres. Known for his continuous political activism especially in his involvement with the … Read MoreWilliam Wells Brown (ca. 1814-1884)
Although many twenty-first century readers are aware of his work only through his introduction to Frederick Douglass’s My Bondage and My Freedom, Dr. James McCune Smith was one of the most broadly accomplished black intellectuals and activists in antebellum America. Born in New York on … Read MoreJames McCune Smith (1813-1865)
Born into slavery on the eastern shore of Maryland in 1807, James William Charles Pennington escaped from slavery in 1828 and settled for a time in Long Island, where he studied in night school. Devoted to black education, he became an antislavery preacher, teacher, activist, … Read MoreJames W. C. Pennington (1807-1870)
Martin Robison Delany was an African American abolitionist, the first African American Field Officer in the U.S Army, and one of the earliest African Americans to encourage a return to Africa. Delany was born in Charles Town, Virginia (now West Virginia) to a slave father … Read MoreMartin Robison Delany (1812-1885)
Olaudah Equiano, whose father was an Ibo chief, was born in 1745 in what is now Southern Nigeria. At the age of 11 years, Olaudah was captured by African slave traders and sold into bondage in the New World. Equiano, given the name Gustavus Vassa … Read MoreOlaudah Equiano (1745-1797)
Lewis Hayden was born a slave in Lexington, Kentucky on December 2, 1811 into the household of the Rev. Adam Runkin, a Presbyterian minister. In 1840 he married fellow slave, Harriet Bell (c.1811-1893). The Haydens successfully escaped slavery in 1844. They traveled to Ohio, Canada, … Read MoreLewis Hayden (1811-1889)
