Chapter 29: Abolitionist Lloyd Garrison becomes leader of the freedom movement.

January 1, 1831 marks the first appearance of William Lloyd Garrison’s newspaper, The Liberator, which calls for the immediate abolition of slavery. It will continue to be issued weekly up to the end of the war in 1865.

Spurred on by fellow Quakers, Benjamin Lundy and Lucretia Mott, Garrison builds a tight knit following that includes an escapee named Frederick Douglas whom he discovers at a conference on Nantucket Island. He sends Douglas and others out on lecture tours across the North using “moral suasion” to seek converts.

They are typically met with opposition from angry whites who favor “ethnic cleansing” rather than assimilation. Danger lurks at any moment and Garrison himself is almost lynched by a mob in Boston.

In 1833 he co-founds the American Anti-Slavery Society, along with New York abolitionist, Arthur Tappan.

His polemics, including a call to burn the Constitution, are geared to enflame opponents, and he remains undaunted in his quest, saying:

“I am in earnest – I will not equivocate – I will not excuse – I will not retreat a single inch –
AND I WILL BE HEARD!”