American Abolitionists Knowledge Cards

Long before the United States of America was divided by the bloody rift of the Civil War, the evils of slavery drove abolitionists to take up arms against that most pernicious institution. While the former slave Frederick Douglass wrote and lectured and advised presidents, his friend John Brown delivered his message with bullets. The 48 cards in this deck treat the history of abolitionism biographically and thematically. Half the cards provide close-ups of women and men who worked to free America’s slaves—writers, editors, activists, underground railway conductors, and leaders of slave rebellions. The other half include detailed essays on such subjects as the Amistad mutiny, abolitionist newspapers, the underground railroad, and Black women’s role in the abolitionist movement.