American History Hit - What Made America? The Abolitionists

Episode Date: June 28, 2026

In 1831, it looked like enslavement in America would continue forever. 34 years later, it was permanently abolished under the 13th Amendment.How did that happen? And who made it so?We've been asking some of our favourite historians for their most important moment in these 250 years of the United States' History.In this episode, Kellie Carter Jackson returns to talk Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and all the other amazing people and groups who refused to accept enslavement.Kellie Carter Jackson is the Michael and Denise Kellen ’68 Associate Professor in the Department of Africana Studies at Wellesley College. She is author of several books, including ‘Force and Freedom: Black Abolitionists and the Politics of Violence' and 'We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance'.Edited by Aidan Lonergan. Produced by Sophie Gee. Senior Producer was Freddy Chick.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  All music from Epidemic Sounds.American History Hit is a History Hit podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Want to explore even more history? Sign up to History Hit, where you will discover history from around the world. From the American Revolution to prehistoric Scotland, there is plenty to discover. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com slash subscribe to bring the past alive. On July 4th, 1776, an Irish-born American named John Dunlap is given a document, handwritten in quill pen on parchment.

He gets to work, placing every letter and punctuation point in his printing frame piece by piece. Working through the night, he starts printing his broadsides. As the first copies are drying, the words of the Declaration of Independence are set in print. We hold these truths to be. be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That all men are created equal becomes one of the central dilemmas of American history, part of an ongoing and defining struggle.

Hello there, welcome to American history. I'm Don Wildman. For the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, we have invited a number of our favorite guests to discuss their personal favorite moments of our history, moments that particularly capture the aspirational spirit of this uniquely American celebration. With me today is Kelly Carter Jackson, the Michael and Denise Kellan 68, professor in the Department of Africana Studies at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. She is the author of the award-winning book, Force and Freedom, Black Abolitionists, and the Politics of Violence, and We Refuse, a forceful history of Black resistance, among others. Kelly, great to see you again. Thanks for your time. All good? Yes, all good. Thanks so much for having me again. Of course, happy semi-Quincentennial, if you can even get that word out of your mouth, my God. I could not. I've just been saying happy 250.

Exactly. Thank you for taking this question. object, event, era, personality. Do you find most inspiring at this time in the spirit of 250? Okay, I'm so biased, but I always think about Frederick Douglas. I always think about Frederick Douglass. I really see Frederick Douglass is like the premier American. I mean, he lives such a storied life. And often when I think about the Fourth of July, I think about his famous, what to the

slave is the 4th of July. And here in Boston, on the 3rd of July, every year, people take turns reading portions of his speech in public. So it's this big sort of forum, lots of people gather around. And it is one of the most beautiful sort of collective artistic acts where people get to sort of just spend time with his words and take different paragraphs reciting what he wrote. And I think about it every year. It's just really, really special. Yeah. It happens every year where relive in Martha's Vineyard, he spoke there many times and vacation there, and it happens there. Well, he sits squarely in the midst of an era, of a whole era of American history that I think we should talk about in the spirit of 250, which is the abolitionist movement. But first,

I want to know about your career first. How did you come to study Black resistance? Is that what we would call that particular field of study? Yeah, yeah, that's a perfect encapsulation. I would say in college. I majored in print journalism. I thought I was going to be a journalist, but I minored in African-American studies, and I felt almost like I should have switched my major and minor. I was so into all of the courses that I took in African-American studies on Black History, and I did my senior thesis on John Brown. So I really got into the abolitionist movement. You know, I'm taking classes in Frederick Douglass Hall. And Howard is such a special place to study. I got parents. I got paired with an advisor. She introduced me to the archive. She took me to the Moreland Spengarde

Research Center, which is one of the largest repositories of African American history. And I just went all in. I mean, I could not get enough. Like the first time I read letters that Frederick Douglas wrote to his daughter. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is the actual letter. Like, this is the paper that he touched, that he like, I mean, I just could not get enough. And Howard is just so special when it comes to like activism and student activism and awareness. Yeah. Yeah, that's my origin story. Douglas is such a fully human person. I mean, it's so silly to say they all are, but founding fathers, we sort of consigned to history more so. But Frederick Douglass is living and breathing. You can feel it in history. It's the tension between the ideals of this country and the reality of how this nation

was really built that is a constant play of forces that's fascinating in this time to consider Unfortunately, we often speak of enslavement in the Americans on this series. It is sadly such a large chapter in the story of the United States. We'll get to abolition in a moment, but first, we should address how fundamentally embedded slavery was in the life of this nation, North and South. Before the Civil War, it was a prime factor in U.S. economic growth. Let's just talk through that a bit. Yeah, I mean, I don't think people realize, Isabel Wilkerson says this. in her book cast that we have been a country with slavery longer than we have been a country of

free people. And that to me is always sort of staggering. You know, we're celebrating 250 years of American history. And yet slavery is older than the country in a lot of ways. And I think that tells you a lot about what you need to know about the United States, that slavery really is this old sin, a national sin. It is an economically huge business. it builds this country. Politically, it is so embedded when we think about why there was even a confederacy, why people were so bent on holding on to the institution of slavery because it protected their political power and their economic power and their social power.

It has its sort of roots and tentacles everywhere in the country. So much so that you can readily see it to this day, the afterlives, the after effects of slavery. And so it's kind of hard to discuss America 250 and not talk about that duality, the fact that the founding fathers are being catered to by enslaved people while writing the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson is being served by enslaved people while he's writing, we, the people. You know, like, it just is kind of mind-boggling the cognitive dissonance that you need to have when talking about America and the institution of slavery.

Sure. By 1860, 4 million enslaved people, which represents, as you say, a massive amount of the nation's total wealth. And I think that's really important just, you know, even intellectually, never mind emotionally, to understand this as a facet of enslavement that people often don't consider. I mean, they get lost in the stories of how this lifestyle was led and this practice was led. But the fact of the statistics are really fascinating. Yeah. Their labor produced, of course, the lucrative crops like tobacco, rice, and cotton. But on the other side of the Mason-Dixon line, you've got northern merchants,

textile mill owners, insurers, also accumulating vast amounts of wealth, financing, transporting, processing the goods when you consider, all of that produced by enslaved labor, which, of course, you know, we know. The math plays through, you know, when you do these kinds of things economically, you understand that labor is the major cost of anything. And so here we are. Yeah. I think people forget that, or maybe aren't even aware of the fact that when the South seceded from the United States, New York City was going to join them. That New York City was like, wait a second, all of the banking, all of the insurance companies, all of the investments are properly held within Manhattan.

And so you had a lot of people in the North who were deeply sympathetic to the South because their economic livelihoods were tethered to the institution of slavery. Exactly. Eight of the first 12 U.S. presidents, slaveholders. I mean, that's how fundamentally, never mind, you know, Jefferson and Washington and all these guys at the very beginning, writing these ideas, these contradictory ideas and hypocritical ideas in the founding documents, it plays forth for decades right to the antebellum period and all of that. And then it was written into the Constitution, of course, before that. You know, three-fifths compromise, 1787 was the agreement between during the U.S. Constitutional Convention that states that three-fifths of a state's enslaved population would be counted for determining both taxation and representation in the House of Representatives.

So it's that fundamental. It's the rule of law, you know? Yeah, yeah, that you are written into the Constitution in here. humanely, that you are not a complete person. You are not five-fifths of a person. You are three-fifths of a person. And that counting mattered because slaveholders wanted their representation within Congress, their political representation was based on, you know, the census, based on numbers, based on like your population density. And so being able to count enslaved people, but not quite people, is just mind-boggling to me that it's in, it's not someone's like manifesto, it's not in

someone's diary. This is in the Constitution of the United States. Slavery is a part of our fabric. And I think we need to be honest about that because there's an attempt to really erase or forget or sort of like cherry-pick the way that we talk about the country. But you can't allow America to really be its best self until you look at it completely, until you look at all the things that make it beautiful and ugly and terrible and hopeful, all in the same space.

Thank you. I'm saying it all the time on this show and in my life. Can we get over all the, oh, my God, you know, the victimization of why do we talk about this stuff when we're just talking about it. It's not the reality today. There are definitely factors that we need to discuss as reality. but what we are talking about is a history that really is in some regards a triumph, at least of people deciding to change things,

which is what we're going to talk about right now. But first you have to understand the context, which is what we've just been doing. I want to cap that conversation by saying, you know, under the law, enslaved people were considered property. That's really important here. Then comes the landmark 1857 Dred Scott decision, which goes further. That says by the U.S. Supreme Court's rule, black people enslaved or free were not citizens. Okay?

That's as low as it gets. I mean, everything's low. Yeah. But that's the one where you have no rights. Yeah. You aren't even like here. You know, you're not anything to do. So all of that is to say the abolitionist movement has to move that argument from the depths of despair, you know, our view of it.

Yeah. to a whole other way of life in this country, an entire rebirth, thanks to the likes of Frederick Douglass and all the rest. And that's what we're going to discuss today. So when does the abolitionist movement really begin? Where are the roots? Are they here in the U.S.? I would say, and this is like debated, but I mean, like scholars tend to pinpoint their starting

points a little bit differently. But for me, the abolitionist movement starts the moment enslaved Africans are brought on ships and start resisting. Like the moment they start resisting, no one wanted to be enslaved. There are rebellions on slave ships. One out of every 10 ships has a rebellion on it. And the moment Africans are brought to the new world,

they are petitioning, advocating for their freedom. So you do have these waves in which you get abolitionist leaders who sometimes get a little bit more volume, sometimes get a little bit more attention in their movement. But in the early 1700s and the 1800s, you have people who are constantly speaking out about the institution of slavery, calling it wrong, saying it's bad. Equiano writes his slave narrative talking about the evils of slavery. Phyllis Wheatley, you know, is talking about this as well. But the abolitionist movement that sort of we all popularly know really has its genesis in the 1830s.

William Lloyd Garrison starts the American Anti-Slavery Society in 18. or the New England anti-slavery society in 1831, the American anti-slavery society in 1832. So by the 1830s, you really have this formal official abolitionist organization. But before that, there is movement, there is traction. Certainly in UK and England, they have their own abolitionist movement. So there are waves to it. But I think it's just important to say, regardless of where you start it, that people are always resisting the institution of slavery. Well, this is a, you know, a classic trap of white

saviorism, you know, like, whoa, whoa, whoa, there was abolitionists before white people started getting on the right side of this. Yeah, before William Lloyd Garrison, yeah. I mean, I love William Lloyd Garrison, but he's not the only one. Yeah, exactly. Even before, I mean, I would suggest 1688, there are the German Quakers in Philadelphia. Yeah. German Quakers in Pennsylvania, lived in an area called Germantown to this day. This was a village unto itself. It joins Philadelphia later. They issue in 1688, okay?

This is way before the country here, 88 years before this nation is founded. The English just took over New York from the Dutch a decade or two before. They issue the Germantown Quaker petition against slavery, marking the first organized protest against slavery in the colonies. Okay? That's 175 years before the civil. war. Yeah.

This is what I mean, but I'm saying the country has had slavery longer than it's had free people. I mean, it is, this is an old movement that people, I think that sometimes we like to give the past a past where we say, oh, well, they didn't know any better or everyone was doing it. No. People knew that it was wrong and they were calling it evil and they were calling it a sin and they were calling it deplorable from the moment the system gets started. Yeah. The church is calling it out quite a bit.

Quakers are known for really being sort of like the original OG abolitionists when you think about what they were doing and how early they were doing it. But let's not be too quick about that because there were a lot of Quakers who are enslaved. They were they were in slaves as well. True, true. Yeah. And this is why the abolitionist movement is so messy, right? It's so messy because it's not this very, no pun intended, but black and white movement where you have good people and bad people.

You can't reduce any movement to sort of like heroes and villains. But I think we like to think of it very simplistically because it helps us to get our minds around it. But, I mean, there were also black people who were slaveholders. Make sense of that. So, like, you know, it's complicated. Right. I mean, the Quakers and things interesting. We've done some shows on that on the series.

And one of the fundamentals of Quakerism religiously, theologically, is that there's that of God equally in all men and women and people in general. And that spark is the equality aspect of this. And so it's hard to believe in that and not turn to slavery and say, something's wrong here. So there were a lot of Quakers who were applying those theological ideas, of spiritual ideas, to this thing. And it does give a real fertile ground to abolitionism to take root.

1775, so now we're zipping ahead, almost a century, the Pennsylvania Abolition Society becomes the first formal anti-slavery organization. It was established in Philadelphia, the Quaker City. But there are non-Quakers on that board, or whatever you call. The leadership of that group is Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Rush, non-Quakers. This movement is expanding.

It really starts to happen in the mid-1700s, doesn't it? Yes, absolutely. In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania will say writ large, becomes the sort of ground zero for thinking about the contestation of slavery. And part of this is because especially as the country becomes the United States and becomes more of its own identity, Pennsylvania geographically is situated in this interesting place where it is the north, but it's right up against the south. You know, you've got Maryland that's slaveholding, you've got Delaware that's slaveholding, you've got all of these other states,

around it that are slave holding states. And it's really trying to hold this line. And so a lot of the major legal statutes that you will see that push abolitionist ideas come out of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania. And so, and if you are an enslaved person in the south and you can get to Pennsylvania, you know, you could get to a safe haven to a place that might be sympathetic to your humanity. Yeah, it's your first stop for a major northern city. There it is. And it was also a major capital at that point in time. It's a hotbed of social progressiveness in terms of the Quakers right from the get-go.

But also lots of thinking is happening in the enlightenment aspect of this. You know, all those ideals are being applied, and that's the revolutionary aspect of this, which is all the stew that's changing things and the likes of a Benjamin Franklin. who I take great pride in were the ones who are able to sort of wrap themselves around a new world rather brilliantly. And then obviously, like, this has to change. Are you kidding me? Yes.

And call it the hypocrisy. Yeah, exactly. And especially when you've written these things down on paper, you know, and proudly proclaimed yourself as a new nation based on these principles, suddenly it's sort of screamingly obvious. But you're right to call that out, which is like, we still want to consign this to the comfortable place of, oh, you know, these are ancient times, you know, people weren't used to these new ideas. No, they were very used to these ideas. Yes. Anybody with a brain, certainly an

educated brain, was considering the hypocrisy and very, very criminal aspect of this in terms of ideals. It was just that it was so deeply embedded. And that's what abolitionists really have to go. They're like dentists, you know, they have to go in there and say, this tooth has to come out. Sorry. Yes, yes. It's to the point where even Abigail Adams, the wife of John Adams, says, how is it that the loudest yelps for freedom come from that of slaveholders? And she was, you know, accurately pointing out this duality where it's like, wait a second, you're writing about how, you know, the King of England is oppressing you and, you know,

that no taxation without representation. And you're talking about all of these ideas of freedom, liberty, equality. the age of revolution, this enlightenment period where people are thinking deeply about what does it mean to be free? What does it mean to sort of operate with autonomy? And yet, you know, you're waving the whip and the lash and you are holding people in bondage and you are preventing them from experiencing their own liberty. And you are creating laws that will perpetuate enslavement for generations. to come. So a lot of people don't realize that common law, English common law, everything went through the father. You know, if your father died, you were left sort of penniless if he did not

hand something down to you. Everything went through the father. But in slavery, they created laws where everything goes through the mother. So it's the idea that it's mother's baby, fathers, maybe. And so if you want to ensure that enslaved people stay enslaved and you create a law that says, well, if your mother was a slave, then you were a slave, because we can't necessarily tell parentage through the father. Then you have this machine that allows you to keep slavery going and going and going, putting everything through really the wombs of black women. So it's hypocrisy that knows no bounds. Yeah. How did the decisions made in Great Britain banning the transatlantic enslavement trade,

how did that affect and begin to give spark to the abolition movement in America? Oh, that's a really good question. I point everything back to Haiti. Sandomang was a French colony in the Caribbean. They start their own revolution, which becomes the Haitian revolution, which leads to Haiti becoming the first sort of independent black nation in the Western hemisphere. And that sparks terror in the United States throughout all the Caribbean, throughout South America, Europe, you name it, people start to think, whoa, this is a problem because I believe

about 40% of enslaved people on the island of Haiti were African-born. And so instead of saying slavery is wrong, they were like, well, maybe we should just end the trade. Like maybe we shouldn't get African-born slaves anymore. And so Great Britain really through the sort of inspiration, or maybe you should say terror of the Haitian revolution, starts to say, okay, let's close the slave trade down. We're going to give people a year. We're going to announce it in 1806. We're going to make it official in 1807.

But it does a couple things in the United States. One, people now have this urgency about, well, if the slave trade is closing, we need to get as many bodies over here as possible. And so the slave trade does really ramp up in those last years. And then people are starting to think about, okay, well, maybe at the turn of the 19th century in the early 1800s, people start to think, maybe slavery's just going to die. Maybe slavery is just going to fade out, and that's going to be the end of it. And then we will maybe send black folks back to Africa, or we will sort of come up with

some other way of dealing with the Negro question. But one of the ways that question is answered is through technology and the expansion of the cotton gin and cotton being this new cash crop that does not allow people to relinquish their ability to let go of slavery because it's so, so lucrative. And so in some ways, the slave trade closes, but in other ways, the domestic slave trade in the United States expands because, and this is also because of the Asian Revolution, France is in a pickle. It needs to pay off its debts.

And so it says to Thomas Jefferson, hey, we have all this French territory. You want to buy it for a bargain. And Thomas Jefferson is credited with like, oh, my gosh, he gets all this territory for a steal. He doubles the size of the United States. And that purchase really makes slavery in able to expand westward in ways that would not have happened had not all these other factors been on the table. That Western expansion thing, my goodness, it just affects everything, doesn't it? Yes. Oh my gosh. You want to talk about Native American removal? I mean, it's all connected. It's all connected. Exactly, exactly. But I really am one of those

is guilty of thinking of the Louisiana purchase in that fifth grade way that I was taught. You know, it's just like that. I mean, you would be surprised how many people. I don't think you're an anomaly. I think that's how I was taught the Louisiana purchase was Tamiferson got a great deal, you know? And we don't think, no, no, no. Haiti kicked France's butt, Francis broke. France needs, France needs to pay its debts.

And that's how it chose to do it. All of which, and thank you for indulging me in this whole first chapter here, because I was really trying to get you back to your original point, which is that the abolitionist movement begins to sort of take off in the 1830s. The movement shifts to a more universal, immediate emancipation idea. Yes. William Lloyd Garrison is the name you've mentioned.

He begins publishing at this point a radical paper, The Liberator, in Boston. Where does William Lloyd Garrison get off doing this? Where did he come from? And why? I mean, William Lloyd Garrison, is probably... He's a white guy, first of all. He's a white guy.

White guy from New England. I actually got to see the house he was born in in Newburyport, Massachusetts. It's still standing and you can go see it. But he is this fervent believer in Christianity in his faith. He believes that slavery is wrong. He actually is apprentices as a printmaker and starts publishing like our early abolitionist paper. But it wasn't as a...

radical is what Garrison comes up with it. The idea for Garrison is that, no, slavery has to be immediate. It can't be this sort of gradual, okay, we'll phase it out into apprenticeships and go from there. He's like, no, slavery is wrong and we need to end it. And he believes that slavery is not just legally criminal, but morally problematic. And so he develops his own newspaper and it really takes off. It becomes the leading abolitionist newspaper. Black women and men in particular are his number one patrons. They are buying up his newspaper. They are finding out ways like, okay, how can we all be in partnership with each other? We've got the same ideas. So they really support him. And Garrison talks about this as well. He's like the lifeblood of the Liberator is the

black community. And now it becomes a problem. You know, it puts Garrison's life at risk. Many times he was attacked. Many times people tried to tar and feather him. His newspaper is banned all throughout the South. All abolitionists pamphlets, newspapers, writings, publications are banned throughout the South for obvious reasons, you know. Yeah. But there were some enslaved people who had literacy. I know we know that slavery is made literacy illegal. but that does not mean that insane people weren't able to access some of these papers and read. And a lot of these newspapers are also written in ways

where if you had one literate person in the community, they could read it to the rest of the group. They could share these ideas. Really powerful. Interesting to do a discussion about abolition in terms of the education movement in America because that has huge effects that people don't even think about because you can't spread ideas without people being able to read them

in those days. And so... Yes. And the first integrated schools are from the abolitionist. I mean, I think of Oberlin College was famous for being like an abolitionist college. They're the first co-ed, integrated, interracial college that people could attend. And schools, places like these were just unheard of. I'll be back with more American history after this short break. He's a gnarly guy, Garrison. Obviously, he's got, he's a bold individual. 1833, he co-foundes the biracial American anti-slavery society in Philadelphia,

organizes a widespread campaign of public lectures, et cetera. I bookend this, you know, in my way, between not just the Civil War, obviously, but also the Fugitive Slave Act, which is 1850. You know, we're talking about a 20-year period when these ideas are making people squirm in America in a big way, you know. Those who are able to accommodate this as a, something they are willing to live with, certainly economically. All this period from 1830 to 1850 is really when abolition

and starts to push against the American way. Yeah. And that's when Frederick Douglass comes into the picture, isn't it? Yeah. Frederick Douglass escaped slavery. He tried multiple times to escape slavery. He, from the state of Maryland, he makes his way to Baltimore and eventually comes to New York.

And then winds up settling in New England. and becomes friends with William Lloyd Garrison and really becomes Garrison's protege in a lot of ways. I mean, he's not a child, he's an adult, but they saw a unique partnership in each other. Douglas could tell his story. He publishes his story, his own narrative. Frederick Douglass's narrative becomes a national bestseller.

And he joins Garrison on the lecture circuit. And they go all around the country, all around the north, I should say, talking about the eaves of a slave. talking about how they want an immediate end to slavery. And they sort of go into business together. I mean, they really become deep friends. Now, their friendship is complicated. There's some fissures there.

They go sort of back and forth as probably any friendship would. But Douglas is picking up what Garrison is putting down. And I think Douglas really surpasses Garrison and probably rightly so. I think people wanted and needed. to see the face of abolitionism as an enslaved person. What is the disabilities movement says nothing for us without us? Garrison was like, all right, I understand that, you know, this has to be a movement that includes the enslaved themselves.

And also, I think Garrison was conflicted because some of his tactics or his ideas about how to enslave. We're not always the same as those who were formerly enslaved. You know, Garrison believed in moral suasion and. you know, this idea of civil disobedience and turning the other cheek and not responding to violence with violence. And a lot of black abolitionists were like, now hold on, Garrison, listen. Like when the mob is coming to attack you, we are not turning the other cheek. We are not going to morally persuade them that that slavery is wrong. And so that's kind of where Garrison

and Douglas split a little bit too, where Douglas takes on a little bit. a much more forceful stance. And certainly when the Civil War comes, he's out there recruiting for soldiers to fight, and even since his own sons to fight in the Civil War. It's in Douglas, because the man's a genius, that you find this capacity, unbelievable capacity, to hold two ideas in his head at the same time or more.

I mean, he's basically able to see the beauty of the Declaration, and those principles of liberty and equality, whilst at the same time questioning, obviously, the United States' ability to support this institution. And that tension he plays out in his work and his orations so amazingly for that time. I mean, amazingly, any time. We would be flocking to see Frederick Douglass today. He was that much of a modern individual.

You know, it moves you to think of it. Yeah. I would say one of the most famous people of the 19th century. He's certainly the most photographed person of the 19th century. Yeah, exactly. And gorgeous, a gorgeous man on top of it all. Magistic. Striking.

So for all those reasons, it is an astonishing time in 1852 when he makes this famous, famous, Fourth of July speech. Can you tell me about that? Oh, man. So this speech, iconic. Iconic. That is the best way to sort of describe it. It's a long speech, too.

You know, back in the 19th century, people were outside giving these long one hour, two hours, speeches. But he could hold an audience, this guy. He could hold an audience. One, what else did you have to do? I mean, it's not like the time was sort of a little bit different back then. But you would show up to this rally, to this event, and you would be enthralled. You would hold on to Douglas' every word. he knew how to give a speech. He was very charismatic. He knew how to tell a story. He knew how to lure the crowd into what he was saying. And not just because he was so eloquent and sort of charismatic, but he lived a life as an enslaved person. He wasn't someone who was from the outside sort of saying, like, I've studied this and I think it's wrong. He's like, no, I've lived these experiences. I can tell you about what it means for mother to be separated from,

child to have these, you know, violent whippings to get into a physical altercation with my overseer. I mean, these are things that Douglas could talk about firsthand. But also because Douglas had literacy and he was so well read and such a scholar of the day, he could also like hone in on these ideas that were pushed in the Enlightenment, liberty and equality and humanity, and he could touch on it in a way that just resonated with people of all backgrounds. The address is called What to a Slave is the Fourth of July, which of course everyone should be reading this year. It is this address that was made to the Ladies Anti-Slavery Society in Rochester, New York, and he was basically taking up the position that white Americans were

not living up to their own ideals. And that's why I mentioned he was able to hold this idea. But I'm curious, I mean, in your work and your scholarship, I'm sure you have sat and said, how did this man, what world did he see beyond the one that he was living in? Like, how would he have a mission to complete when this was a brand new idea? You know, David Blight, who is one of the most famous biographers of Frederick Douglass, calls him the prophet of freedom. And I think this word profit is so interesting because a prophet is someone who sort of sees into the future, sees past the current moment that they're in and can sort of predict or calculate or make these very specific predictions about what is going to happen. Douglas could do that. He could look at the past, the present, and even aspects of the future and say, this is what this is. And this is what it's going to be if you don't change, if you don't repent, if you don't get right, if you don't, you know, live up to these ideas.

And time and time again, you could read his speech today, like right now. And you could say, oh, my gosh, someone could give this speech right here in America and it would still resonate. It would still feel relevant. And I think that's because he fully understood the problem. He fully understood how slaveholders thought and how they operated, how black people thought and operated. He understood how the abolitionist movement for all of its gifts and flaws were thinking and operating to. And he was a few steps ahead of it. The only other person I can compare to Douglas is like a W.E.B. Du Bois, just prolific writers, can't write a bad sentence.

You know, just so thoughtful. But even WBD, at least he has hope at this point. Like the Civil War is behind us. You know, you talk about Douglas and all that's ahead and it's incredible. But that's what's so interesting to put him in the context of 250 is so fascinating because this country was not even 100 years old. And it had based itself on this frontier idea that there was this world beyond what we were used to. And so Douglas is very much in the tradition of that.

Of course, he's fighting against, you know, horrors that are happening. but he's very much in that American spirit of like, let's try something new here, people. You know what's wrong. Let's fix it. And let's be inclusive. I mean, he's not just advocating for enslaved people. He's pushing for women's rights. He's pushing for immigrants to have rights.

He cares about poverty. You know, he cares about every person that is oppressed and marginalized. He is their champion. And that's why I think he's so ahead of his time. In this abolitionist movement, you have all the same. of what will become the progressive era of America. Yes. In the turn of the 19th to 20th century.

All of those things are happening throughout the 19th century because of abolition, the engine of change that comes from these people. We have a list of folks, so I want to move us expeditiously along here. Harriet Tubman, another individual in this movement. A whole different story than Douglas. She's a woman of action, isn't she? Yes. Oh, my gosh.

Harry Tubman. I mean, I know it sounds so cliche to be like Douglas and Tubman, but they are, there is a reason their names like cannot be said without mentioning the 19th century is because they're so central. Harriet Tubman is brilliant. She's someone who's navigating a traumatic brain injury. When she is, you know, a child, she's struck in the head with a metal iron that she gets hit in the head with. She suffers greatly. And yet, she has all of this courage. all of this know-how to be able to navigate the terrain, to be able to get enslaved people to

freedom. She takes multiple trips back and forth from the north into the south, rescuing people, saving people. She acts as a scout during the Civil War and is, you know, giving intel to the Union and, you know, helping enslaved people, one of the largest groups of enslaved people, get free over 800 people. She leads into freedom during the Civil War. She pushes for women's rights, You know, like she's pushing for the rights of the elderly. Like she is doing, and she lives a long time. I mean, she dies in like 1913 or something. Like she lives into the 20th century, which is incredible to me.

But she has all of these highs and lows all while maintaining her illiteracy. She never learns to read or write. And this woman is brilliant, unquestionably brilliant. And so I think of her a lot when I think of. of the founding of this country, when I think about America 250, when I think about who are the people that were really pushing America to be better,

to be better for all people. It's Douglas and it's Tubman. Yeah, I mean, her courage, you say 800 people, I mean, that's not at once. I mean, she does this dozens of times. Yeah. She marches through those woods and takes that chance so many times

to bring this and that group of people up and move this whole thing along. That's why I say, woman of action. It's amazing. William Wilberforce is a name that always can, I don't know much about this person. Where does he stand in the whole pantheon here? Wilberforce, I always think of Wilberforce University. And like one of the things that the abolitionists were known for, I think.

And this is like, I don't want to get too off topic. But like, when I think of the abolitionist movement, it is not just a movement to end slavery, although that is like preeminent. it is an idea to improve the lives of so many people through education, through like these sort of mutual aid societies where people are trying to aid and help one another as best as they possibly can. And Wilberforce is on the front lines of that, like trying to get as many resources and help to people who are experiencing slavery, who are experiencing extreme oppression and puts really his money, his efforts, his life where his mouth is and

does that day in and day out. He represents so many of these great leaders, white great leaders that I think intricately understood that more was needed than just ending slavery, that you had to be able to create a space where black people could navigate their equality, that they could have citizenship, that they could have education, that they could become fully functioning members of society with all the rights and protections that that required. So I think of Wilberforce up there with Garrison. I think of him up there with Charles Sumner. I think of him as one of these leading abolitionists that understood early how wrong this institution was. I'll be back with more American History.

after this short break. I don't even have Sumner on this list. And that's how... Oh, Sumner. You got to have Charles Sumner, and he's like... No, I mean, we could go on and on. And I just wanted to mention Sojourner Truth, you know, who's so famously speaking, you know, she's the great orator about slavery and equality for women.

Again, this is the beginning of all of that. Yes, and women's rights. One of the first, I would say, one of the earliest feminists would be Sojourner Truth, hands down. I mean, she's speaking out against women's rights long before Susan B. Anthony, long before Elizabeth Cady Staten, she's going to these conventions. And we should say all these people know each other, too, like Sardroon, Truth, Harry Tubman, Douglas, you know, Garrison, they're all within the same spaces and they are all working together to push multiple platforms.

And what I think is so interesting about black abolitionists in particular is that it's, again, not just a movement to end slavery. It's about equality. Like slavery, any enslavely is the first step. But a lot of people were like, no, we have to go beyond that, which is why you don't just have the 13th Amendment. You have the 14th. You have the 15th because you have to not just free the enslaved. You have to give them citizenship. You have to enfranchise them. You have to give them the right to vote. That doesn't extend to women at the time. But that's what people were pushing for. They wanted as many rights and protections as possible. And they're pushing for that. Yeah, right. Well, we're talking about a 200-year movement as well. It goes on forever.

I mean, right to the present day, of course. Yes. But that's the perspective that is so fascinating. Often I mention these shows that we're doing about 250, and people assume I'm talking about the founding fathers, you know, that kind of time period. And there are many in this country who think that 250 should be that discussion only and exclusively. And I think, no, no, no.

It's where do those seeds go? How does this grow? And how does it confront these things so boldly and bravely? And I'm so proud of that part of this country's history, the good part of it in terms of its healing. It's fascinating. But in the context of this list, I want to. The people who are working to make America great, like really great, not in a slogan kind of way,

but people who are working to make America live up to its creeds, I see those leaders as part of the founding mothers and fathers of this country, anyone who was working for that. Yeah, I mean, it gets me quite in the heart. Mm-hmm. There are so many regular folks, you know, black activists. who are doing the hard work in those offices and keeping the thing going and building it, arranging work stoppages, property damages, armed revolt is planned. Black freedom struggles have always involved a refusal to acknowledge the dehumanization,

the equality, the racial oppression. You make a living at studying this kind of resistance. How do you sit that in the American story? Is it what we were just saying pretty much? or is there an even greater vision seen by those who embrace this? So I tell people very broadly that I study the lived experiences of black people, which feels very big and broad. But I see Black American history in particular as a history of refusal.

And when I say refusal, I mean, black people are refusing ill treatment. They're refusing slavery. They're refusing human indignities. And the way refusal manifests itself is like multi-fold. I mean, there's so many different ways in which we see black people working for freedom, never just for themselves, always for the collective, always for everyone. And that to me is what's so inspiring about studying Black resistance is that it's not this isolated, you get mine, I'm going to get yours, you know, like, or I'm going to mind, you get yours kind of attitude that we see how,

One of the greatest antidotes to white supremacy is solidarity and how black people are so good at creating coalitions with white Americans, with Native Americans, with Asian Americans, with poor white people. Like finding common ground that allows everyone to live free and live well. And so studying these people, yeah, it inspired. me in ways that makes me think about, okay, well, how in my own moment, if I were living then, but I'm living now, what would I be doing that would help sort of further the cause? And I mean, being a writer, being a professor, being someone who's like, I have to tell the story. I am a storyteller. And the best way I can do that is through the pen. Well, I mean, the pen was the most powerful thing that abolitionists had, not just the printed word on the page, but being able to

spread information and awareness about things that were wrong to call it out. I think that's one of the greatest tools that we have. Now, it can be used in both directions. You know what I mean? Propaganda is also as is a thing. But I just, I cannot relinquish my just deep appreciation for people that were doing the work in the face of insurmountable odds. If you had told someone in 1831, you know, oh, slavery's going to be over soon. Nobody will believe that. Slavery was going to be forever. It was the most profitable, lucrative thing.

I mean, we kind of treat people like that when we say, you know, oh, AI is not going to last or, you know, the Internet's not going to really be a thing. It's going to end. You know, like, we can't imagine a world without the Internet. We can't imagine a lot of people. Can't imagine a world without AI or what the future will look like. But, like, these things aren't permanent. Nothing is permanent. All the change that we see comes through activists.

comes through people challenging, comes through people pushing to make things different or better. And so I want to be able to think like that as well, to be optimistic. Does it still astonish you? It does to me when you consider how entrenched this was and also, given how much had been articulated so brilliantly by the likes of Douglas and the rest, in that 20-year period, 18, well, 30, really, 1830s to 1860, that there would be a, war fought over this? I would have thought, given the economic benefits of slavery, when you didn't have to be guilty of being an enslaver, that you would sort of let it give it a pass, you know, if you were in the North and say, okay, you guys have your nation, we'll do ourselves and we'll be friends like that. Instead, the most incredible war happens that is agonizing. It just

astonishes me that. And again, part of a 250 story because, wow, this nation was willing to go to the mat over this whole thing and come out the other side more hopefully. Yeah. Not easily, but hopefully. I think of black abolitionists in particular who said, and I'm paraphrasing, but sort of summarizing their beliefs that because slavery starts in violence and slavery is sustained through violence, slavery would only be overthrown with violence, that we shouldn't not be surprised by a civil war, that these ideas of white supremacy are so addictive and so attractive that people would literally be willing to put their lives on the line to maintain their power, to maintain their wealth, to maintain their authority, that that should

not surprise us that people were willing to shed blood. What boggles my mind is how I understand how you get slaveholders to fight for slavery. That makes complete sense for me, right? They're protecting their assets, their wealth, their identity. But how do you get white northerners to do that too? To say, no, this is wrong. You can get sure, I understand how you get black soldiers to fight. You know what I mean?

Like that makes sense to me. But to be able to get the country, all of the union, to say, no, this is wrong. Well, back to your original point that you may, made earlier about the fact that many of those people thought it would just fade, including Abraham Lincoln. Oh, yeah. You know, let's trap this in the South. Let's not let it go out west. And, you know, those lands are fallow. They're not producing as much as they used to. Eventually, it'll just peter out because free labor, as, you know, which is the sort of industrialized labor force being paid, will take over as a system. That was the notion by name. And black people

will just send them back to Africa. Literally, like Abraham Lincoln is like, he's got a colonization scheme. He's like, y'all, can we just send you back? And Douglas is like, no, we built this country. We are Americans. We are not going back to Africa. I mean, the American abolitionist society pushes colonization schemes for a long time. They don't have great success. But people could not imagine a nation with free black people all over the country. Like, sure, maybe in the north, but like, they couldn't imagine that in the South and what that would. tail. And so I do think that you have these visionaries who are able to imagine something more. And what I also think is incredible about the abolitionists is that they're only one percent of the

population. One percent. You know, it's not all the North. The North is mostly indifferent, apathetic, or even in support of slavery because they work in a textile factory or because they are benefiting from slavery directly or indirectly in some way. You're talking about a small faction of people that were seen as fanatics, that were seen as radicals, that we're not waiting on consensus. You know, they weren't like, well, we need a majority to vote, like, or we need to get everybody on board. It's like, no, this is wrong, and we're going to force this institution, whether you like it or not. And that's me's encouraging. Yeah, and not cynical. Yeah, and not cynical. They're not cynical. And not cynical at all. That's what's amazing to me. As a

tremendous cynic, a person raised by cynics. I know cynicism. And it's not a productive way to think. It doesn't change a thing. You sit down on yourself and you surround yourself with your fellow cynics and nothing shifts. And black people in America from the get-go have known that better than anyone and have carried forth an un-synical attitude to today that says, yeah, there's a lot we're pissed off about. And we're willing to take measures against that. and it's et cetera, et cetera, but we're not willing to be cynical because that will not change anything. No, it won't. I mean, I am a rose-colored glasses, glass-half, optimistic future forward-thinking person. That's just how I am. But I think it's because, you know, the future doesn't exist yet. And so, like, we know what the past is.

We know what the present is. But the future could be anything, which means that we have the ability to shape it, to mold it, to sort of conjure it into being. That, for me, is really exciting to think of, like, what could be possible. You know, if you had told someone in 1776, you know, we're going to go to the moon. We're going to go to the moon. We're going to land on the moon. No one. Like, how? You didn't even have airplanes.

How could you go to the moon? Like, that is just, you know, impossible. But, like, that is what I think is so limiting about, like, racism and sexism. It's that when you cap someone's ability to be their full selves, to have full inclusion, to like think expansively about possibility and what people can accomplish, there are no limits. There are literally no limits. Like I think about the story in the Bible where, what is it, the Tower of Babel, where they're like, all these people came together and they're like, we're going to build a building in

to outer space. And God's like, oh, snap, they might do this. When you have solidarity, when you have a common ground, when you have commitment and dedication, when you're willing to make sacrifices, that's why the abolitionists were so powerful. You don't need large numbers. Give me a small group of committed, dedicated people, forward-thinking visionaries that are willing to make sacrifices.

And stuff will change dramatically. Yeah. And they were following a truth. a universal truth. Yes. And so we learn from them in this time that despite the dreary days we may be going through the divisiveness and polarized feelings, those cynical feelings, there are those of our past who we have talked about for a half an hour here, who are the inspiration for the future that even we need to live through. We need that vision now. Yes. We have that in our history. Thank you Frederick Douglass, Sojourner, Truth, and all the rest. And thank you Kelly Carter Jackson for taking

us through this. Thank you. Amazing conversation. Thank you. This was so good. You've given me hope. You have like you have just, I've been doing a lot of 250 conversations. And, you know, it's very easy to be cynical.

It's very easy to be like, wamp, wamp, but now there's a celebration. But. It ain't a cynical time. Yeah, we need hope. You know, right now I'm speaking from the campus of the University of Maryland for those listening. And I am on the board of what's called National History Day. And thousands of kids come together every year to do the national finals of,

of this History Day operation that's throughout the country. Boy, there's no cynicism there. Kids of all sorts are excited about the stories of history, excited about the time they're in. They don't know all those reasons why they should be, oh, you know, it's not a good time. The media, you know, concentrates so much on it.

But you and I have had a conversation that I hope inspires others to feel the way I feel anyway, which is really hopeful that we'll get through this. And that's because harder things have been gotten through before. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Just look to these heroes. Kelly Carter Jackson is a professor of Africana Studies at Wellesley College near Boston, Massachusetts. She's the author of two books you should get on others as well, but we refuse a forceful history of black resistance. So much of what we've talked about is in there, as well as the much awarded force and freedom, black abolitionists

and the politics of violence. Boy, those would be great cap of readers right on this. We last spoke to Professor Carter Jackson on this series in September 2025, Episode 315. Revisit that one, wherever you get your podcast. It's about John Brown's raid. Kelly, you also do a podcast or two, right? Yes. So I am on the This Day podcast, and all this year we are doing in America 250 extravaganza, where we are looking at 50 weeks that shaped America. So every week we are touching on a new facet of American life that was just transformative. We are looking at the moon landing. We are looking at the Stonewall Riot.

We just covered Harry Truman desegregating the United States military. It's been really fun to do. And then I have another podcast that is all about Reconstruction, America's Unfinished Promise. And it's with Malcolm Gladwell and Barack Obama. And it's anywhere you get your podcast. And it's been really fun to do. You deigned to speak with Don Wildman. Thank you.

I cannot. All right. Thank you, Kelly. Thank you. Anytime. My pleasure. Hey, thanks for listening to American History Hit. You know, every week we release new episodes,

two new episodes dropping Mondays and Thursdays, all kinds of content from mysterious missing colonies to powerful political movements to some of the biggest battles across the centuries. Don't miss an episode. By hitting like and follow, you help us out, which is great. but you'll also be reminded when our shows are on. And while you're at it, share it with a friend. American History Hit with me, Don Wildman.

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