John Rankin
1793 – 1886 · United States
“Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?”
A Presbyterian minister born to devout, staunchly antislavery parents in Tennessee, Rankin moved his family to Ripley, Ohio, where his hilltop home became one of the most active stops on the Underground Railroad, helping an estimated 2,000 enslaved people reach freedom. His widely circulated “Letters on American Slavery” shaped the convictions of Harriet Beecher Stowe, William Lloyd Garrison, and others; asked after the Civil War who abolished slavery, Henry Ward Beecher answered simply, “Reverend John Rankin and his sons did.”
Read more on Wikipedia ↗Portrait: Unknown photographer · Public domain