Question

Well into the 1960s, historians taught their undergraduates that abolitionists such as william lloyd garrison, theodore dwight weld, and angelina and sarah grimke were irresponsible fanatics who brought on a civil war. What was radical about these reformers?

Answer 1

William Lloyd Garrison was an abolitionist who sought immediate emancipation for all African Americans, an unusual idea for the 1830s when most of those who did support emancipation posed a gradual reform.

Influenced by Garrison's work, Theodore Dwight Weld, his wife Angelina Grimké and her sister Sarah Grimké wrote American Slavery As It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses, a book published in 1839, which spread antislavery ideas that helped start the Civil War.