Austin Steward, author, businessman, abolitionist, and temperance leader, was born a slave in Prince William County, Virginia to Robert and Susan Steward sometime around 1793. By the age of seven he was working as a house slave on the plantation of Capt. William Helm. The … Read MoreAustin Steward (1793-1869)
Harriet Robinson Scott was an enslaved person who is best remembered for being the second wife of Dred Scott. Harriet was born a slave on a Virginia plantation around 1820. From a young age she was a servant to Lawrence Taliaferro, a US Indian Agent. … Read MoreHarriet Robinson Scott (ca. 1820-1876)
To escape enslavement on a plantation near Richmond, Virginia, Henry “Box” Brown in 1849 exploited maritime elements of the Underground Railroad. Brown’s moniker “Box” was a result of his squeezing himself into a box and having himself shipped 250 miles from Richmond, Virginia to Philadelphia, … Read MoreHenry “Box” Brown (1816-1889)
Image Ownership: Public Domain The Kansas Emancipation League’s primary goal was “to bring about emancipation throughout the whole land.” It was initiated at the First Baptist Church in Leavenworth, Kansas in 1862. It also pledged to “support the war until its successful termination,” put an … Read MoreKansas Emancipation League (1862)
Francis Johnson Webb, newspaper editor, educator, equal rights activist, and the second published African American novelist, was born free on March 21, 1828, in Philadelphia to Louisa Burr and Francis Webb. His mother, Louisa Burr (c1785-1878), was the illegitimate daughter of former vice president Aaron … Read MoreFrancis Johnson [Frank J.] Webb (1828-1894)
George W. Lowther, barber, abolitionist, equal school rights activist, and Massachusetts legislator, was born a slave in Edenton, North Carolina, to Polly Lowther. His father’s identity is unknown. His mother, Polly Lowther (c.1780-1864) was an Edenton baker, the slave of wealthy planter Joseph Blount Skinner … Read MoreGeorge W. Lowther (1822-1898)
Henry Davis Green was an anti-slavery activist (abolitionist) who was a participant in the Christiana Resistance (also known as the Christiana Riot) of 1851, the largest and most violent antebellum response to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Green, a teamster by occupation, was born … Read MoreHenry Davis Green (1827-1911)
Quindaro was an abolitionist town on the border between the slave state of Missouri and free state settlers in Territorial Kansas. By its existence, Quindaro undermined the attempted blockade of the Missouri River by proslavery advocates against additional free state supporters flowing into Kansas. Quindaro … Read MoreQuindaro, Kansas Territory (1857-1862)
Alan Gilbert, University of Denver political scientist and anti-racist activist, is the author of Black Patriots and Loyalists: Fighting for Emancipation in the War for Independence, one of the few works that examines the free and enslaved blacks who joined the American Patriots and the … Read MoreFighting for Freedom on Both Sides of the American Revolution
Stephen Myers held a variety of jobs over his lifetime but he is best known as a leader of the local Albany, New York Underground Railroad before the Civil War. Myers was also a prominent publisher who became an effective abolitionist lobbyist. Myers was born … Read MoreStephen Myers (1800-1870)
