The Liberator (newspaper)
The Liberator (1831–1865) was a weekly abolitionist newspaper, printed and published in Boston by William Lloyd Garrison and, through 1839, by Isaac Knapp. Religious rather than political, it appealed to the moral conscience of its readers, urging them to demand immediate freeing of the slaves ("immediatism"). It also promoted women's rights, an issue that split the American abolitionist movement. Despite its modest circulation of 3,000, it had prominent and influential readers, including Frederick Douglass, Beriah Green and Alfred Niger. It frequently printed or reprinted letters, reports, sermons, and news stories relating to American slavery, becoming a  sort of community bulletin board for the new abolitionist movement that Garrison helped foster. History. Garrison co-published weekly issues of "The Liberator" from Boston continuously for 35 years, from January 1, 1831, to the final issue of December 29, 1865. Although its circulation was only about 3,000, and three-quarters of subscribers (in 1834) were African Americans, the newspaper earned nationwide notoriety for its uncompromising advocacy of "immediate and complete emancipation of all slaves" in the United States. Garrison set the tone for the paper in his famous open letter "To the Public" in the first issue: "The Liberator  continued for three decades from its founding through the end of the American Civil War. It had black columnists and reporters. Garrison ended the newspaper's run with a valedictory column at the end of 1865, when the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery throughout the United States. It was succeeded by The Nation". Women's rights advocacy. The "Liberator" also became an avowed women's rights newspaper when the prospectus for its 1838 issue declared that as the paper's objective was "to redeem woman as well as man from a servile to an equal condition," it would  support "the rights of woman to their utmost extent." In January and February 1838, the "Liberator" published Sarah Grimké's "Letters on the Province of Woman", and later that year published them as a book, using the reprint to call attention to another of Garrison and Knapp's projects, the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society. During the following decades, the "Liberator" promoted women's rights by publishing editorials, petitions, convention calls and proceedings, speeches, legislative action, and other material advocating women's suffrage, equal property rights, and women's educational and professional equality. The "Liberator"s printers, Isaac Knapp, James Brown  Yerrinton (1800–1866) and James Manning Winchell Yerrinton (1825–1893), and Robert Folger Wallcut (1797–1884), printed many of the women's rights tracts of the 1850s. Inspiration among abolitionists. The "Liberator" inspired abolitionist Angelina Grimké to publicly join the abolitionist movement. She sent a letter to William Lloyd Garrison recalling her experiences as a member of an upper class, white, slaveholding family. Angelina Grimké's letter to William Lloyd Garrison was soon after published in "The Liberator". Frederick Douglass was inspired by "The Liberator." As he commented upon in his first issue of "The North Star," Frederick Douglass felt that it was  necessary for African-Americans, such as himself, to speak out about their own experiences with injustice. He claimed that those that experienced injustice were the ones that must demand justice. Soon after, Douglass began writing his own abolitionist newspaper, "The North Star." in 1836, five years after he agreed to be "The Liberator"'s agent in Rhode Island, Alfred Niger helped to found the Rhode Island Anti-Slavery Society, one of only two Black men in the entire organization. Resistance. "The Liberator" faced harsh resistance from several state legislatures and local groups: for example, North Carolina indicted Garrison for felonious  acts, and the Vigilance Association of Columbia, South Carolina, offered a reward of $1,500 () to those who identified distributors of the paper. Garrison also faced resistance, even to the point of violence. In 1835, a Boston mob formed with support from local newspapers in resistance to the announcement that George Thompson would speak at the first anniversary meeting of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society. The mob, unable to find Thompson, redirected their aggression towards Garrison who was in the society's meeting hall. Eventually escalation of the situation led to destruction of the society's antislavery sign, and  even calls to lynch Garrison, around whose neck a piece of rope made into a noose was put (to frighten him). Garrison eventually managed a narrow escape; the mayor put him in the city jail for his protection. Contents online. Garrison's articles. Garrison wrote much of the content. He wrote while typesetting; that is to say, most was not written out on paper first. The following are examples of articles and editorials written by him: