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Antislavery Crusader

Like Frederick Douglass, Henry Highland Garnet achieved fame as an antislavery crusader and in his later years served his country in appointed office.
Garnet was born a slave in Maryland, escaped with his parents to Pennsylvania when he was nine, and graduated from Oneida Institute in 1840. His eloquent antislavery oratory soon gained him a following. In 1843, he made his famous speech at the Free Colored People Convention in Buffalo, in which he called for a general strike and armed rebellion. The speech was too rousing, even for Douglass, who recessed the meeting to let the assemblage cool down. But Garnet, a pastor as well as a political activist, continued to advocate violence to end slavery, if peaceful methods failed.

After the Civil War, Garnet was a pastor in Washington and New York, president of Avery College in Pittsburgh and U. S. Minister to Liberia.