This short text, an early version of which I wrote and recorded some time ago, reflects some of my deepest personal convictions—convictions embodied for me in the life of William Lloyd Garrison, a remarkable human being who remains little known even in much of the world around us.

Friends who were with us in the first days of this page about three months ago may have heard the earlier version. In this new version, with improved audio quality, I have combined the writing with historical images related to each scene from Garrison’s life. I will share both an MP4 version and a separate PDF outside YouTube for friends in Iran who cannot easily access YouTube.

I will also separately share three memorable statements by Garrison and two by Thomas Paine that I have placed at the heart of my own beliefs.

William Lloyd Garrison was among the earliest figures to launch a sustained abolitionist movement in the United States through the publication of his newspaper The Liberator, beginning with little institutional power behind him. Today everyone knows Abraham Lincoln, while Garrison’s role in abolition is less widely recognised. For me, Garrison represents those “one persons” in every society who refuse to surrender themselves to their society’s lies and who heroically accept the burden and suffering involved in remaining one person. In the abolitionist struggle, Garrison helped initiate the movement, formulate principles for it, gather resources and influential allies, place the issue into public debate, ignite the torch of abolition and help move his nation towards the eventual destruction of slavery.

At a time when churches were often reluctant to oppose slavery and some institutions discouraged clergy from speaking against it, Garrison wrote with extraordinary courage and clarity in the editorial of the first issue of The Liberator. In the rendering presented here, he declared:

Do not ask me to write with compromise. I will be as harsh as truth and as uncompromising as justice. I will not think, speak or write mildly. No. Tell the man whose house is on fire to alert others quietly; tell him gently to rescue his wife from the hands of someone carrying her away by force; or tell a mother calmly to take her child from the fire into which the child has fallen. Then tell me to speak calmly in the crisis before us. I am in earnest. I will not equivocate. I will not excuse myself. I will not retreat a single step, and I assure you that I will be heard.

Aydin Areta