Blue Fish
Slavery was evil and needed to be ended immediately. I carried out my antislavery views by using my pen. Hi, I'm William Lloyd Garrison. I was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts on December 5, 1805. My dad was a skill-full seaman and my mother was a hardworking religious woman who was disowned by her father when she converted to the Baptist denomination of Protestant Christianity. When I was only 3, my alcoholic dad deserted my two siblings along with my mother in 1808. My mom raised us near poverty and sometimes my siblings and I would beg for food or eat leftovers from the wealthy. When I was only 7, I moved in with Deacon Ezekiel Bartlett in which I had to do chores around the house in return. My mom and my older brother James moved to Lynn, Massachusetts; my infant sister Elizabeth remained in Newburyport. Schooling was often sporadic, but I did receive some education. I attended a Baptist church regularly, where I was taught to hate slavery because it was against God's word. After two years, when I was 9, I moved out of the deacon's home. I then became a shoemaker, although I am known for my work as an abolitionist writer against slavery. I first pursued my writing career when I became an editor in 1824 of Newburyport Herald, a local newspaper. Then, in 1828 I became an editor of the National Philanthropist, another newspaper. After, I founded and published my own newspaper, the Liberator, to carry out my antislavery views. In 1833 I founded the American Antislavery Society, in which I was president from 1843 to 1865. During this time, I impacted many with my speeches against slavery, liquor, and injustice. I urged a friend, John Greenleaf Whittier, a Quaker from Massachusetts, to write against slavery also.
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