Social movement Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 2

Social movement - Essay Example The homogeneity of the Abolitionist Movement was however soon to be fragmented with the increasing participation of African-Americans in this movement for their emancipation. The involvement of Blacks in the movement made it move beyond its erstwhile minimalist agenda of slave emancipation. The movement gradually began to press for political and social equality in all domains for Black Americans. This perhaps somewhat predictably caused a rift between the White abolitionists and their Black counterparts. The abolitionists adopted a number of measures to have their demands heard. They sent innumerable petitions to the American Congress, wrote pamphlets and treatises giving moral, religious and social arguments against slavery and held conferences and speeches to mobilize mass support for their cause. One of the very first White abolitionist was Benjamin Lay pointed to the moral and religious underpinnings of slavery and termed it a â€Å"notorious sin†. Anthony Benezet, yet another early abolitionist combined a didactic critique of slavery with its economic implications. He argued that if owners of slaves would stop their demand for slaves, the heinous practice of the Atlantic slave trade would inevitably come to an end (Abolition, Anti-Slavery Movements, and the Rise of the Sectional Controversy). Perhaps the first outspoken Black abolitionist figures were Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth. Truth spent a considerable part of her life as a slave before gaining independence through the New York Gradual Abolition Act of 1827. She advocated not merely race equality but was also extremely ahead of her times in advocating gender equality. Douglass on the other hand was an extremely impressive orator who worked in collaboration with leading abolitionist leader William Lloyd Garrison to speak widely and powerfully for the cause of slave emancipation. Douglass’ numerous writings and speeches went a long way in