Abolitionist Freed the Slaves
Throughout their school years, children are taught to believe a racist story: Abraham Lincoln freed the enslaved. However, this is far from the truth because Lincoln did very little in order to end slavery. Lincoln should not receive credit for the abolishment of slavery, instead, the credit should go to the abolitionists who continuously worked to end slavery. Throughout the years, abolitionists did anything they could in hopes of ending this injustice. For example, they made protests in order to gain the attention of political parties, they gave speeches in order to spread the ideas and beliefs of the movement, and they helped change Lincoln’s mind regarding the injustice of slavery. These are just a couple of the methods and actions that abolitionists did that led to the abolishment of slavery.
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In “A People’s History of the Abolition Movement,” James Brewer Stewart and William Loren Katz state that, “[b]y the end of the [1830s], the abolitionists’ initial campaigns and, ironically, the repressive acts of their opponents had converted many sympathizers into antislavery activists. Every attempt to silence the abolitionists only drew attention to the movement, publicized its principles, and spread concern about civil liberties.” This conveys how the abolitionists’ speeches, protests, campaigns, and boycotts helped reveal the injustice of slavery to the people. In this same text, Stewart and Katz explain how, “riot and repression showed how much power the Southern planter class exercised in the North, deeply disturbing those who already had some reservations about slavery.” This demonstrates how the acts of the abolitionists persuaded people to join the movement by revealing the power held by the South and how much the North relied on