I first heard this Quote from Martin Luther King !!!
The arc of the moral universe is long,
But it bends toward justice
--Abolitionist Theodore Parker, c. 1850s
As I search thru census records....... the 1830-1850 - Pre Civil War Thinkers
Who Was Theodore Parker?
He was born in Massachusetts 1810-1860.... and known as an American Transcendentalist and reforming minister of the Unitarian church.
A reformer and abolitionist, his words and quotations which he popularized would later inspire speeches by Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr.
Theodore Parker rejected all miracles, and saw the Bible as full of contradictions and
mistakes. He retained his faith in God but suggested that people experience God
intuitively and personally. He thought that individual experience was where people
should center their religious beliefs.[
In Boston, Parker led the movement to combat the stricter Fugitive Slave Act enacted with the Compromise of 1850. It required law enforcement and citizens of all states- free states as well as slave states- to assist in the recovery of fugitive slaves. Parker called the law "a hateful statute of kidnappers", and helped organize open resistance to it in Boston. Parker and his followers formed the Committee of Vigilance, refusing to assist with the recovery of fugitive slaves, and helping to hide them.[11] For example, they smuggled away Ellen and William Craft when Georgian slave catchers came to Boston to arrest them. Due to Parker's effort, from 1850 to the onset of the American Civil War in 1861, only twice were slaves captured in Boston and transported back to the South. On both occasions, Bostonians combatted the actions with mass protests
During the undeclared war in Kansas (see Bleeding Kansas and Origins of the American Civil War) prior to the outbreak of the American Civil War, Parker supplied money for weapons for free state militias. As a member of the Secret Six, he supported the abolitionist John Brown, whom many considered a terrorist. After Brown's arrest, Parker wrote a public letter, "John Brown's Expedition Reviewed, "defending his actions and the right of slaves to kill their masters.
