Garnet escaped in 1824 and made his way to New York. There he pursued an education and eventually became a Presbyterian minister. Garnet became associated with the American Anti-Slavery Society, and his career in the late 1830s and early ’40s joined preaching with agitation for emancipation. A nationally known figure, he shocked his listeners at the 1843 national convention of free people of colour when he called upon those who were enslaved to murder their masters. His speech became known as the “Call to Rebellion.” The convention refused to endorse Garnet’s radicalism, and he gradually turned more to religion as Frederick Douglass assumed the role of premier Black abolitionist.
In addition, when he was home, Douglass served as a conductor for the Underground Railroad. Douglass then founded his own abolitionist paper, The North Star, for which he wrote diligently. After the war, he served first as a federal marshal in Washington D.C. under President Hayes, and then as the ambassador to Haiti.