Race, Class, and Antislavery: African American Women in the Transatlantic Antislavery Movement

African American women were active participants in the antislavery efforts of the early nineteenth century, but they were not fully accepted by their white counterparts. Through the experiences of three women, this article examines the intersection of class, race, and gender in the lives of African American women abolitionists and their efforts to negotiate the racism that permeated American society. African American women sought white allies to fight racism and sexism within the antislavery movement, but those allies often held prejudicial views themselves. The wealth and connections that middle-class or elite status provided some African American antislavery women generated wider options for negotiating barriers to employment and acceptance but could not fully ameliorate the discrimination they faced.