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abolitionists



  • Was Emancipation Intended to Perpetuate Slavery by Other Means?

    by Sean Wilentz

    Protests movements have latched on to a misguided interpretation of the Thirteenth Amendment that argues it allowed and even encouraged the system of mass incarceration as an extension of slavery. A new global history extends that critique to the age of emancipation in general.


  • The Truth About James Loewen

    by Ann Banks

    HNN blogger Ann Banks writes that a small exchange typified the late James Loewen's insistence on telling the truth about history.



  • Today It’s Critical Race Theory. 200 Years Ago It Was Abolitionist Literature

    In 1829, South Carolina and Georgia responded to a series of fires they assumed were set by enslaved people by banning both the abolitionist literature they blamed for inciting rebellion and the teaching of literacy to slaves. Today's battles over curriculum are likewise about ideas deemed threatening to social hierarchies.



  • Immigration and the New Fugitive Slave Laws

    by Manisha Sinha

    The abolitionists’ protests against the fugitive slave laws, which deprived large groups of people of their liberty and criminalized those who offered assistance to them, should be an inspiration in our dismal times.