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 gently; tell him to rescue his wife mildly from the one who is taking her by force from their home; or tell a mother to lift her child gently from the fire into which the child has fallen. Then do not tell me, in the circumstances before us, to speak softly. I have risen in earnest. I will not stammer. I will apologise to no one, and I will not retreat a single step, and I assure you that I will be heard. An excerpt from the first editorial of The Liberator On the anniversary of the death of William Garrison Founder of the social movement for the abolition of slavery in the United States A Look at the Life of William Garrison Founder of the Abolitionist Movement in the United States Aydin Areta 24 May marks the anniversary of the death of William Garrison, a courageous fighter for freedom. For most people, the movement to abolish slavery is associated with the name of Abraham Lincoln, but the truth is that Lincoln brought to political completion a movement that had been begun before him by courageous men and women such as William Garrison. Although many people before Garrison, including Thomas Paine, had condemned slavery, no one before him had organised such a comprehensive movement against it or challenged this demonic trade so systematically. He can therefore be regarded as one of the first to launch a full-scale movement aimed at destroying slavery, and for this reason he is often described as a founder of the social abolitionist movement in the United States. In his struggle for freedom he courageously defended not only the rights of Black people but also equal rights for women, Native Americans and persecuted Chinese immigrants. From a modest room and with almost nothing in his hands, at only twenty-six years of age, William Garrison first published a newspaper in 1830 called The Liberator, carrying beneath its title the slogan: “My country is the world; my countrymen are all mankind.” Garrison was the newspaper’s sole writer, and in its first two years the number of subscribers did not exceed four hundred. Yet neither poverty, lack of readers, ridicule nor threats weakened his determination or commitment to pursuing his aims. Seven years later, despite the danger, threats and loneliness of the path he had chosen, he established the New England Anti-Slavery Society and told the small gathering of supporters and like-minded companions: “Never be afraid of being few in the path of truth. The victory of a moral movement has never depended upon the number of its followers.” At the beginning of Garrison’s struggle, the dominant idea among opponents of slavery was reform and gradual abolition. Garrison, however, argued forcefully for immediate and unconditional abolition. In his first editorial he wrote, in the Persian rendering preserved in this source: “I am a friend of reform, but what is placed before us in the name of gradual abolition is not reform. It removes one devil and will create thousands of others.” He began this movement at a time when churches still refused to oppose slavery and in some places did not even permit clergy to speak against it. Many states prohibited the publication of material advocating abolition. Under such conditions, William Garrison’s explicit writings and speeches against slavery led legislators in Georgia to offer five thousand dollars to anyone who would deliver him to that state for trial and punishment, while slaveholders in Mississippi reportedly offered twenty thousand dollars to anyone who could hand Garrison over to them. Angry pro-slavery crowds erected a gallows outside his home as a threat. In Boston an angry pro-slavery crowd attacked a meeting at which Garrison was speaking to women opposed to slavery, tied a rope around his neck and waist, and dragged him through the streets. Their intention was to punish him by tarring and feathering him, and perhaps kill him, had the mayor not intervened and a group of people not rescued him. None of this caused him to retreat even one step from his ideal. In response to these threats he wrote in his newspaper, in the Persian rendering preserved here: “Whether or not I live to witness the destruction of slavery, I believe that throughout these years I have desired nothing that was not plainly grounded in justice and humanity. Today or tomorrow, if I am remembered, I believe I will stand with my head held high before my countrymen. My brothers in this truth, stand so firmly that all the Southern oppressors, all their butchers, and all those in the North who justify their crimes tremble before your faith. Keep your faith and remain vigilant and tireless in our struggle until the last yoke upon freedom is broken and the last human being whose freedom has been stolen is liberated. Our unchanging motto is this: no compromise with slavery, and never any union with slaveholders.”