David Ruggles (1810-1849) was one of the most heroic--and has been
one of the most often overlooked--figures of the early abolitionist
movement in America. Graham Russell Gao Hodges provides the first
biography of this African American activist, writer, publisher, and
hydrotherapist who secured liberty for more than six hundred former
bond people, the most famous of whom was Frederick Douglass. A
forceful, courageous voice for black freedom, Ruggles mentored
Douglass, Sojourner Truth, and William Cooper Nell in the skills of
antislavery activism. As a founder of the New York Committee of
Vigilance, he advocated a "practical abolitionism" that included
civil disobedience and self-defense in order to preserve the rights
of self-emancipated enslaved people and to protect free blacks from
kidnappers who would sell them into slavery in the South.
Hodges's narrative places Ruggles in the fractious politics and
society of New York, where he moved among the highest ranks of
state leaders and spoke up for common black New Yorkers. His work
on the Committee of Vigilance inspired many upstate New York and
New England whites, who allied with him to form a network that
became the Underground Railroad.
Hodges's portrait of David Ruggles establishes the abolitionist as
an essential link between disparate groups--male and female, black
and white, clerical and secular, elite and rank-and-file--recasting
the history of antebellum abolitionism as a more integrated and
cohesive movement than is often portrayed.
