| Prophet Against Slavery: Benjamin Lay | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Date | November 2, 2021 |
| Page count | 117 pages |
| Publisher | Beacon Press |
| Creative team | |
| Artist | David Lester |
| Editors | Marcus Rediker and Paul Buhle |
Prophet Against Slavery: Benjamin Lay, a Graphic Novel is a graphic novel illustrated by David Lester and the editors of the book are Marcus Rediker and Paul Buhle. The 117-page graphic novel was published by Beacon Press on November 2, 2021. The graphic novel is about the Quaker abolitionist Benjamin Lay.
The graphic novel is about Benjamin Lay. [1] [2] [3] The graphic novel was illustrated by David Lester and the editors of the book are Marcus Rediker and Paul Buhle. [4] The graphic novel is based on a biography of Benjamin Lay written by Rediker in 2017. [5] [6] [7] The graphic novel was published by Beacon Press on November 2, 2021. [8] The book is 117 pages long. [9] The novel depicts Benjamin Lay performing guerilla theatre to get the attention of a Quaker meeting and condemn the evils of slavery. [10] [11]
The Publishers Weekly review noted that the "digital font clashes with the hand-drawn quality". [12] Adel Franklyn wrote in Broken Pencil Magazine that the novel has "a passionate script, and a compelling narrative in one." [13] Dan Brown wrote in The London Free Press that "the story leaps off the page" and compared the art to Ralph Steadman's work. [14] Thom Dunn wrote in Boing Boing that the "graphic novel does a tremendous job" of depicting Benjamin Lay. [15] Bill Meyer made a similar comment in Magnet Magazine noting the relationship between the stature of Lay and the power of his message. [16] The graphic novel received positive coverage from socialist and anarchist publications such as the Democratic Socialists of America, the Socialist Worker , and Fifth Estate . [17] [18] [19]
Frederick Douglass was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. He became the most important leader of the movement for African-American civil rights in the 19th century.
Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery and liberate slaves around the world.
John Brown was an American evangelist who was a prominent leader in the American abolitionist movement in the decades preceding the Civil War. First reaching national prominence in the 1850s for his radical abolitionism and fighting in Bleeding Kansas, Brown was captured, tried, and executed by the Commonwealth of Virginia for a raid and incitement of a slave rebellion at Harpers Ferry in 1859.
Mount Pleasant is a village in southern Jefferson County, Ohio, United States. The population was 394 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Weirton–Steubenville metropolitan area. Founded in 1803 by anti-slavery Quakers, the village was an early center of abolitionist activity and a well-known haven for fugitive slaves on the Underground Railroad.
Benjamin Lundy was an American Quaker abolitionist from New Jersey of the United States who established several anti-slavery newspapers and traveled widely. He lectured and published seeking to limit slavery's expansion and tried to find a place outside the United States to establish a colony in which freed slaves might relocate.
Anthony Benezet was a French-born American abolitionist and teacher who was active in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A prominent member of the abolitionist movement in North America, Benezet founded one of the world's first anti-slavery societies, the Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage. He also founded the first public school for girls in North America and the Negro School at Philadelphia, which operated into the nineteenth century. Benezet advocated for kind treatment of animals, racial equality and universal love.
Christian views on slavery are varied regionally, historically and spiritually. Slavery in various forms has been a part of the social environment for much of Christianity's history, spanning well over eighteen centuries. Saint Augustine described slavery as being against God's intention and resulting from sin. In the eighteenth century the abolition movement took shape among Christians across the globe.
The Genius of Universal Emancipation was an abolitionist newspaper founded by Benjamin Lundy in 1821, in Mount Pleasant, Ohio.
Benjamin Lay was an English-born writer, farmer and activist. Born in Copford, Essex into a Quaker family, he initially underwent an apprenticeship as a glovemaker before running away to London and finding work as a sailor. In 1718, Lay moved to the British colony of Barbados, which operated on a plantation economy dependent on slave labour. While working as a merchant, his shock at the brutal treatment of slaves in Barbados led Lay to develop lifelong abolitionist principles, which were reinforced by his humanitarian ideals and Quaker beliefs.
The Religious Society of Friends, better known as the Quakers, played a major role in the abolition movement against slavery in both the United Kingdom and in the United States. Quakers were among the first white people to denounce slavery in the American colonies and Europe, and the Society of Friends became the first organization to take a collective stand against both slavery and the slave trade, later spearheading the international and ecumenical campaigns against slavery.
Elizabeth Margaret Chandler was an American poet and writer from Pennsylvania and Michigan. She became the first female writer in the United States to make the abolition of slavery her principal theme.
Paul Merlyn Buhle is an American historian, who is (retired) Senior Lecturer at Brown University, author or editor of 35 volumes, including histories of radicalism in the United States and the Caribbean, studies of popular culture, and a series of nonfiction comic art volumes. He is the authorized biographer of C. L. R. James.
Marcus Buford Rediker is an American historian, writer, professor, and social activist. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1976 and attended the University of Pennsylvania for graduate study, earning an Master of Arts and Ph.D. in history. He taught at Georgetown University from 1982 to 1994 and is currently a Distinguished Professor of Atlantic History of the Department of History at the University of Pittsburgh.
The free-produce movement was an international boycott of goods produced by slave labor. It was used by the abolitionist movement as a non-violent way for individuals, including the disenfranchised, to fight slavery.
Lucretia Mott was an American Quaker, abolitionist, women's rights activist, and social reformer. She had formed the idea of reforming the position of women in society when she was amongst the women excluded from the World Anti-Slavery Convention held in London in 1840. In 1848, she was invited by Jane Hunt to a meeting that led to the first public gathering about women's rights, the Seneca Falls Convention, during which the Declaration of Sentiments was written.
In the United States, abolitionism, the movement that sought to end slavery in the country, was active from the colonial era until the American Civil War, the end of which brought about the abolition of American slavery, except as punishment for a crime, through the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Abolitionism in the United Kingdom was the movement in the late 18th and early 19th centuries to end the practice of slavery, whether formal or informal, in the United Kingdom, the British Empire and the world, including ending the Atlantic slave trade. It was part of a wider abolitionism movement in Western Europe and the Americas.
Although many Enlightenment philosophers opposed slavery, it was Christian activists, attracted by strong religious elements, who initiated and organized an abolitionist movement. Throughout Europe and the United States, Christians, usually from "un-institutional" Christian faith movements, not directly connected with traditional state churches, or "non-conformist" believers within established churches, were to be found at the forefront of the abolitionist movements.
The Fearless Benjamin Lay: The Quaker Dwarf Who Became the First Revolutionary Abolitionist is a biography of Benjamin Lay written by Marcus Rediker and published by Beacon Press on September 5, 2017. The book was followed by a companion graphic novel entitled Prophet Against Slavery in 2021.