Book Displays: Equal Justice Initiative 2024: May

Calendar photo Caption: Formerly enslaved sisters Susan Gallery and Tabby Page are reunited in Washington, D.C., in 1920, more than 60 years after they were separated by an enslaver who sold Ms. Page to a plantation in New Orleans. (Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

For over half a century before slavery was formally abolished, generations of Black abolitionists worked tirelessly to expose the inhumanity of slavery. Black women like Maria W. Stewart, Sojourner Truth, and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper were indispensable writers, speakers, educators, and organizers who played a pivotal role in shaping the abolitionist movement. 

In 1832, Maria W. Stewart became the first known American woman of any race to deliver a speech to a public audience; she later became the first Black American woman to publish a political manifesto. Her teachings on Black oppression and women's rights inspired activists who were central to the abolitionist movement, including Sojourner Truth and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper. 

After escaping enslavement with her young daughter, Sojourner Truth won a landmark lawsuit to regain custody of her son, who had been sold away from her. Following that historic victory, Ms. Truth was invited to speak at the 1851 Women's Rights Convention, where she delivered one of the most influential abolitionist speeches in history, entitled "Ain't I a Woman?"

At 26, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper became the first woman to teach at Union Seminary, a school for free Black Americans in Ohio. She spent nearly a decade traveling the country to deliver lectures and her short stories and poetry on abolition and suffrage garnered national recognition. 

Black women abolitionists not only helped shift public opinion on slavery, but also laid the groundwork for future generations of Black women activists and leaders in the struggle for justice and equality in America.