1. William Lloyd Garrison: Garrison was a prominent abolitionist and the founder of the American Anti-Slavery Society. He published The Liberator, an anti-slavery newspaper, and advocated for immediate and complete emancipation.
2. Frederick Douglass: Douglass was a former slave who became a leading abolitionist orator and writer. He escaped slavery and became a powerful voice for the cause, lecturing extensively on the evils of slavery and arguing for racial equality.
3. Harriet Tubman: Tubman was a former slave who escaped and became known as the "Moses of her people" for her efforts in leading hundreds of other slaves to freedom through the Underground Railroad.
4. John Brown: Brown was an abolitionist and radical activist who believed in using violent means to end slavery. He led a raid on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in an attempt to spark a slave rebellion, but was captured and executed.
5. Angelina and Sarah Grimké: The Grimké sisters were prominent abolitionist and women's rights activists who came from a wealthy slaveholding family in South Carolina. They left the South to work for the anti-slavery cause and delivered speeches and wrote pamphlets advocating for immediate abolition.
6. Sojourner Truth: Truth was a former slave and women's rights activist who became known for her powerful speeches on abolition and women's suffrage. Her famous speech "Ain't I a Woman?" remains an iconic moment in the history of the abolitionist movement.
7. Wendell Phillips: Phillips was a prominent abolitionist orator and lawyer who defended fugitive slaves and delivered fiery speeches against slavery. He was a close associate of William Lloyd Garrison and played a key role in the anti-slavery movement.
8. Harriet Beecher Stowe: Stowe's novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin" (1852) had a profound impact on public opinion and is credited with contributing to the growing opposition to slavery in the United States.
9. Charles Sumner: Sumner was a politician and abolitionist from Massachusetts who served in the U.S. Senate. He was a fierce critic of slavery and his famous "Crime Against Kansas" speech in 1856, which condemned the pro-slavery forces in the Kansas Territory, led to an attack on him by a cane-wielding pro-slavery congressman.
10. Abraham Lincoln: Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States and a strong opponent of slavery. Although he initially sought to preserve the Union, his Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 freed the enslaved people in the Confederate states, and he led the country through the Civil War to ultimately abolish slavery in the United States.