Slave rebellions, fugitive slaves, and political and religious movements rose to confront and resist the institution of slavery.

Historian Manisha Sinha (2017) wrote, “The connection between slave resistance and abolition in the United States was proximate and continuous. Prominent slave revolts marked the turn toward immediate abolition. Fugitive slaves united all factions of the movement and led abolitionists to justify revolutionary resistance to slavery” (p. 2). Free Black people, fugitive enslaved persons, and Black church members increasingly mobilized white and Black groups to criticize slavery and actively resist it.

Abolition challenged the white-benefitting status quo.

The proposed abolition of slavery challenged the economic model upon which the South derived its wealth and stability. It also threatened the legal, cultural, and political status quo of the entire county (Jeffrey, 2008, p. 1). In many ways, abolitionism challenged the very notion of a racial hierarchy in the United States. Historian Tunde Adeleke (1998) noted, 

Pro-slavery advocates and racial conservatives justified discriminatory politics on alleged deficiencies inherent in the character and conditions of blacks. Blacks, according to popular reasoning, were disadvantaged and degraded in consequence of behavioral and situational imperfections—that they were lazy, ignorant, backward and morally decadent… [R]acial conservatives described these traits as inherent, perhaps even divinely conditioned, and, therefore, permanent. (p. 128)

South Carolina statesman John C. Calhoun, accepting this view of the inherent inferiority of Blacks, argued that slavery was a “positive good” (Kendi, 2017) – benefitting the country and the Blacks themselves. 

Abolitionists tapped into a long history of subtle and overt resistance by African Americans.

While denigrated, abused, and enslaved, Blacks found ways to celebrate their culture, stay connected to their families and friends, and whenever possible, defy their slave owners and seek their freedom (Franklin and Schweninger, 2000, p. 18-19; Kendi, 2017).