Garrison, William Lloyd

Garrison, William Lloyd (1805–1879), abolitionist, nonresistant, and feminist.With the publication of the first issue of the Liberator on 1 January 1831, William Lloyd Garrison became the undisputed leader of the U.S. abolitionist movement. Garrison called for the “immediate” and “complete” emancipation of slaves. Yet he was also a confirmed advocate of nonviolence. In 1838, he and other abolitionists formed the New England Non‐Resistance Society. In its “Declaration of Sentiments,” Garrison pledged its members to oppose all preparation and exercise of war and all cooperation with institutions of war.

Although nonviolence was his key stance, Garrison and his abolitionist wife, Helen Eliza Benson, openly supported the Civil War once it had begun since it brought about the end of slavery. Their eldest son, George Thompson, fought with the 55th Massachusetts (Colored) Regiment. Their other sons ( William Lloyd Junior, Wendell Phillips, and teenager Francis Jackson) took philosophically conscientious objection stances, as did their daughter, Helen Frances ( Fanny). Garrison's legacy is most visible in the pacifist‐feminist‐antiracist lives of succeeding generations of the family who participated in post–Civil War freedmen's associations, the 1898 anti‐imperialist impetus, the peace and antiwar movements from 1915 to today, the founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the antinuclear and environmental movements.
[See also Pacifism; Villard, Oswald and Fanny Garrison.]

Bibliography

Walter M. Merrill , Against Wind and Tide: A Biography of William Lloyd Garrison, 1963.
James Brewer Stewart , William Lloyd Garrison and the Challenge of Emancipation, 1992.
Henry Mayer , All on Fire: William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolition of Slavery, 1998.

Harriet Hyman Alonso