Antislavery: Colonial Beginnings to Emancipation

Long before Abraham Lincoln penned the Emancipation Proclamation, opponents of slavery employed every available literary form — from essays and plays to sermons and hymns — to wage a heroic battle. An expert panel reflects on the pioneering writers and thinkers, from the eighteenth century through Emancipation, who challenged social norms and whose revolutionary ideas helped overthrow a poisonous national institution.