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Abolitionism was the movement that strove to end slavery in the United States. The abolitionists saw slavery as a stain and an affliction on the United States and made it their goal to eradicate slave ownership. Abolitionists produced anti-slavery literature, sent petitions to Congress, and ran for political office.

The abolitionist, essayist, teacher, and women’s rights activist Maria W. Stewart is thought to have been the first African American woman to raise matters of equality and justice in a US public forum, the New England Anti-Slavery Society in Boston. In her 1832 lecture, Why Sit Ye Here and Die?, she demanded equal rights for African American women while criticizing both the slavery of the South and the lack of opportunity and equality in the North. Her biblical style of oratory and fierce opposition to injustice still inspire today.

In February 1833, the African American orator and abolitionist Maria W. Stewart gave a controversial speech at Boston’s African Masonic Lodge which drew a hostile response from the audience, as she criticized her own people for not standing up for themselves. She accused black men of being indifferent to African rights and liberty, claiming that they “lacked ambition and courage”. The audience’s negative reaction to her inflammatory rhetoric led to Maria’s formal retirement from public speaking at a farewell adddress in September of that year.