It was on this date, December 13, 1805, that the great American abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts. Apprenticed early on to a printer, he rose to become editor of several journals after becoming involved in the early fight against slavery, a socially destructive institution the churches had long ignored — when they did not outright support it. While co-editor of Benjamin Lundy’s anti-slavery paper, Genius of Universal Emancipation, Garrison criticized a merchant involved in the slave trade and was imprisoned for libel.

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Originally published December 2003 by Ronald Bruce Meyer.