DISTINCTIONS

I was surprised to read that Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of UNCLE TOM'S CABIN was a colonization enthusiast , but not an equal rights advocate . Few, very few , white abolitionists also were equal rights for blacks advocates . William Lloyd Garrison, a leading white abolitionist in America, like Stowe supported abolition but not equal rights. Abraham Lincoln actually unsuccessfully attempted to resettle a colony of black people in "Ile de Vache," Haiti. Such was the near universal policy of white abolitionists nationally. Rarer were the Gerritt Smith's and the John Brown's , white abolitionists who, as assiduously, also supported the abolition of slavery and equal rights for freed slaves and free blacks. While our people made the best use as was possible of these half-hearted friends' labors and efforts , albeit limited; their own agency to advance our cause of abolition and equal rights, through Civil War, our "Freedom War," until too-brief ten-year "Reconstruction" morphed back to white power Restoration we descendants too often are unaware of the critical distinctions between those who are true and those not! https://www.albany.edu/history/digital/KrakatJohnBrown/ https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gerrit-Smith