Women were quite active in the abolitionist movement. White women came out of their domestic sphere to work against the enslavement of others. Black women spoke from their experience, bringing their story to audiences to elicit empathy and action.
The two most famous black women abolitionists were Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper and Maria Stewart are not as well known, but both were respected writers and activists. The book by Harriet Jacobs was important as a story of what women went through during slavery.
More white women than black women were prominent in the abolitionist movement, for a variety of reasons:
- although the movement of all women was restricted by social convention, white women had more freedom than black women to move about
- white women were more likely to have the income to support themselves while doing abolitionist work
- black women were, after the Fugitive Slave Act and the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision, at risk of capture and transport to the South if someone alleged (rightly or wrongly) that they were escaped slaves
- white women were generally better-educated than black women were (even though not on a par with white men, with very few exceptions), including in formal oratory skills popular for the time
White women who were involved in the abolitionist movement were often connected with liberal religions like the Quakers, Unitarians, and Universalists, which taught the spiritual equality of all souls. Many white women who were abolitionists were married to abolitionists or came from abolitionist families, though some, like the Grimke sisters, rejected the ideas of their families. Key white women who worked for the abolition of slavery, helping African American women find their voices as well as their rights (in alphabetical order):
