Tacoma Community College Library: African American History: The Abolition Movement

The Abolition Movement

The American Anti-Slavery Society produced "The Slave's Friend," a monthly pamphlet of abolitionist poems, songs, and stories for children. In its pages, young readers were encouraged to collect money for the anti-slavery cause. Here a picture of the coffle- yoke used to chain groups of slaves together illustrates a dialogue about the horrors of slavery between a girl named Ellen and her father, Mr. Murray. A shocked Ellen concludes that “I will never boast of our liberty while there is a slave in this land.

(click on image to enlarge)

-From The Slave's Friend, Volume II, p. 3. New York: American Anti-Slavery Society, 1836.
Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (cited & linked below)

Featured Websites & Collections

Linked below are websites, online exhibits, and other digital collections with resources on topics related to African American history in the US

The Abolition Seminar
Created in part from the National Endowment for the Humanities"The Abolition Seminar" is an educational tool designed for students and educators." This website features lesson plans, learning modules, documents, articles, maps, and more.
The Black Abolitionist Archive
From the University of Detroit Mercy, this archive "is a collection of over 800 speeches by antebellum blacks and approximately 1,000 editorials from the period. These important documents provide a portrait of black involvement in the anti-slavery movement; scans of these documents are provided as images and PDF files."
The Black Struggle for Freedom The Major Events and Timeline of the Civil Rights Movement in America
A collection of articles, images, videos and other linked resources covering the following topics: The Black Freedom Struggle | Slave Revolts, Abolition, and the Underground Railroad | Reconstruction | Early 20th Century | The Southern Civil Rights Movement |Politics and Race in Late 20th Century | Resisting Racism in Policing and the Justice System
Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936 to 1938
"Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938 contains more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves. "
Boston Public Library: Anti-Slavery Collection
A guide of resources, including articles, primary source materials, and more - from the Boston Public Library
Emancipation Petitions - Civil War Washington
This is a collection of digitized petitions from slaves in the District of Columbia seeking emancipation, early 1860s
The Liberator - Historic Newspaper Collection
Access digital copies of "The Boston-based radical abolitionist newspaper The Liberator was published weekly from January 1, 1831 to December 29, 1865. The Liberator was founded and published by William Lloyd Garrison and Isaac Knapp and was a leading vehicle for unrelenting advocacy of the abolitionist cause and for the immediate and total emancipation of all enslaved persons in the United States."
Library of Congress: African American Perspectives
"African American Perspectives" gives a panoramic and eclectic review of African American history and culture and is primarily comprised of two collections in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division: the African American Pamphlet Collection and the Daniel A.P. Murray Collection with a date range of 1822 through 1909. Most were written by African-American authors, though some were written by others on topics of particular importance in African-American history.
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Among the authors represented are Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Benjamin W. Arnett, Alexander Crummel, Emanuel Love, Lydia Maria Child, Kelly Miller, Charles Sumner, Mary Church Terrell, and Booker T. Washington, among others.
Library of Congress: Frederick Douglass Papers
"The papers of nineteenth-century African American abolitionist Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), who escaped from slavery and then risked his freedom by becoming an outspoken antislavery lecturer, writer, and publisher, consist of approximately 7,400 items (38,000 images), most of which were digitized from 34 reels of previously produced microfilm. The collection spans the years 1841-1964, with the bulk of the material dating from 1862 to 1895. Many of Douglass’s earlier writings were destroyed when his house in Rochester, New York, burned in 1872."
Library of Congress: The African-American Mosaic
"A Library of Congress Resource Guide for the Study of Black History & Culture"
New-York Historical Society, Manuscript Collections Relating to Slavery
"The New-York Historical Society holds fifteen important manuscript collections relating to the institution of slavery in the United States and the Atlantic slave trade. They include account books and ship manifests documenting the financial aspects of the slave trade, records of educational institutions and anti-slavery organizations, correspondence and other personal papers of abolitionists, legal documents such as birth certificates and deeds of manumission, and political works."
Online Exhibit: Slavery and Abolitionist Movement (1790-1860)
A part of the "Black Freedom Struggle in the United States" collection, Search through primary source documents covering census info, legislation on race and slavery, slave rebellions, religion, the abolitionist movement, and more.
Runaway Railroad [Podcast]
An episode of the podcast, History of American Slavery - "Our sometimes mythical memory of the Underground Railroad, and why the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 propelled the country toward war."
Slavery Images
"This educational resource is a two-part website created for teachers, researchers, students and the general public. It exists to assist anyone interested in visualizing the experiences of Africans and their descendants who were enslaved and transported to slave societies around the world. "
The Underground Railroad
An online exhibit from Google Culture and Arts by the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center
Underground Railroad - National Park Service
From the Nation Park Service website, this is a collection focused on the Underground Railroad of online exhibits, articles, lesson plans, and more.
The Underground Railroad in Virginia
A collection of resources looking at the underground railroad in the state, focusing on the means of travel at the port; includes topical sections and first hand accounts.

Featured Videos

Linked below are videos both freely online through websites like YouTube or TED, as well as from the library's collection in such databases as Kanopy, Films on Demand, or Academic Video Online. Click or hover your cursor over the icon to learn more about each item.

The Abolitionist Roots of Reconstruction
A lecture, 60min + with Manisha Sinha, from the National Humanities Center Education Programs
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Recent events have revealed the importance of teaching and understanding the period of Reconstruction in United States history. Drawing on research from her forthcoming book, The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic: A New History of Reconstruction, 1860-1900 (2023), Manisha Sinha will discuss how educators can incorporate the histories of abolition and Reconstruction in a more robust way by understanding how ordinary American citizens, men and women, Black and White, helped to expand the boundaries of American democracy through progressive constitutionalism and state formation at the national and state levels. Reconstruction, which was overthrown through a concerted campaign of political terror and legal chicanery, reveals the contested nature of American democracy with important historical lessons for our own times. By the end of this webinar, teachers will be able to draw on these insights to develop an expanded sense of this era in their classrooms.
Abolition of Slavery
A 10 video series from History Hub that looks at global slavery, the slave trade, abolition, and more
America Explained, 81, The Lincoln-Douglas Debates
A short video from Untold History - streaming on Alexander Street
America Explained, Episode 135, All Men are Created Equal? The Founding Father's Views on Slavery
A short video from Untold History - streaming on Alexander Street
Crash Course : Frederick Douglass
Crash Course Black American History
Crash Course: The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793
From Crash Course's Black American History Series
Crash Course: The Germantown Petition Against Slavery:
From the Black American history series
Crash Course: The Underground Railroad
From the Black American History series from Crash Course
The First Underground Railroad
A short video from Black History in Two Minutes or so
Harriet Tubman: They called her Moses
A full 2018 film about Tubman
Who is William Lloyd Garrison?
A video from PBS' American Experience, about the notable abolitionist

Featured Podcasts

Linked here are full podcasts or podcast episodes, as well as short audio recordings from news programs such as National Public Radio (NPR) and the like.

Slavery and Abolition
Episode 105 of 15 Minute History
The Long History of Abolition in America [Podcast]
An episode from "Dig: A History Podcast"
Seizing Freedom
"The story of the end of the Civil War you've probably been taught is that the slaves were freed by Northern white men (and maybe a handful of famous Underground Railroad conductors). What's missing? The story of how Black Americans risked their lives to fight for their own visions of what freedom could be—struggling for their dignity in the face of horrific violence. Seizing Freedom tells the stories of these unsung American heroes."
The Haitian Revolution [Podcast]
Episode 11 from the University of Texas podcast, 15 Minute History
Benjamin Banneker: End Slavery Now! [Podcast]
An episode of the podcast, Humanity Archives
Abolitionism [Podcast]
An episode of The Very Short Introductions Podcast
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"In this episode, Richard Newman introduces abolitionism, a global human rights movement during the 18th and 19th centuries aimed at ending slavery in the Atlantic world."