CFASS in Concord
Posted on | February 1, 2010 | Comments Off
Concord’s role in the American Revolution and in the literary and philosophical ‘revolution’ of Transcendentalism has long been celebrated. Less well known, is the leadership that women of Concord provided to yet another revolution – the abolition of slavery in the United States.For decades, the Concord Female Anti-Slavery Society sponsored speakers, raised funds, wrote and distributed publications, signed petitions, sheltered fugitive slaves, and assisted African Americans in the community. Long before Emerson and Thoreau spoke out against slavery, their wives, daughters, and female friends were crusading abolitionists. Mary Merrick Brooks and others worked with leading abolitionists, including William Garrison, Wendell Phillips, John Brown, and Harriet Tubman – all of whom spoke and fund-raised in Concord. Local children also supported the cause – 195 Concord school children signed a petition requesting that Lincoln “free all slave children.” Today, copies of this petition, together with Lincoln’s response, hang in the 3 Concord public elementary schools – a tribute to the pioneering work of Concord’s women abolitionists.