During the three decades before the American Civil War, Southern slaveholders tried to end the anti-slavery movement. They exerted their influence by censoring the press and the mail, attacking and killing abolitionists, burning buildings, drafting frightening new laws and repealing others, and terrorizing and abducting Northern free Blacks. Northerners began to realize that the Slave Power would not rest until slavery was allowed to plant itself all over the nation; many stopped compromising and pushed back. This awakening was due to the efforts of visionaries who used the power of the pen, purse, pulpit, and press to expose the brutal injustices of slavery in an attempt to bring about the liberation of an enslaved people and restore the country to its original commitment of equality for all.

When People Were Things offers a humanizing lens of these disturbing times, portraying well-known Americans in new and surprising ways-activists that still inspire and energize us today-while not shying away from revealing a world often disturbed by Blackness. The book puts the lie to the argument that tries to portray America's slave-owning past in any positive light whatsoever.