Topic: Abolition
Abolition, abolitionists, anti-slavery, The Liberator, the colonial movement

AbolitionAfrican AmericansSocial & Religious InstitutionsWest Boston An engraving a a three story church buildings. People in long dresses walk and stand outside.

The Fugitive Slave Church: The Twelfth Baptist Church, Leonard Grimes, and Abolitionism in the West End

Established in 1840, Boston’s Twelfth Baptist Church was located on the North Slope of Beacon Hill (in the historic West End) until its move to Roxbury in 1906. In the 1850s and ‘60s, the Church defiantly mobilized in response to the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act. Under the leadership of Leonard Grimes, the congregation raised funds to aid freedom seekers and became known as the “Fugitive Slave Church.” This active political, cultural, and religious meeting place had many prominent members and visitors from the Black abolitionist community, including Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Lewis and Harriet Hayden, Shadrach Minkins, Anthony Burns, Thomas Sims, Christiana Carteaux and Edward Mitchell Bannister, and Peter Randolph.

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AbolitionAfrican AmericansPolitics & LawWest Boston A Black man wearing a suit stands, facing the camera, with his arm rested on a column.

Robert Morris

Robert Morris (1823-1882) was a prominent civil rights leader in Boston and the United States’ second African American lawyer. He built a successful career as a lawyer handling civil, criminal, and civil rights cases, while putting his life and livelihood on the line for causes he believed in: abolition, the protection of freedom seekers, the desegregation of schools, the integration of militias, equal rights for women, and fair representation for immigrants.

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AbolitionAfrican AmericansArt & LiteratureWest Boston Portrait of Christiana Carteaux Bannister, seated.

Christiana Carteaux Bannister and Edward Mitchell Bannister

Entrepreneur Christiana Carteaux Bannister and artist Edward Mitchell Bannister married in Boston’s West End in 1857. Throughout the 1850s and 1860s, they were active in Boston’s abolitionist and artistic communities. During these years and beyond, their symbiotic financial and creative partnership helped to bolster both of their careers and their community connections.

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AbolitionAfrican AmericansWest BostonWomen Photograph of a Black woman seated, wearing a long dark dress.

Harriet Bell Hayden

Harriet Hayden was born enslaved, fought for her freedom, and aided hundreds of southern escapees by housing, feeding, and protecting them. She did this all while raising a family, running a boarding house, learning to read and write, and becoming an activist and community leader. Without her efforts, the many accomplishments of her husband, Lewis Hayden, would not have been possible.

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