MAry Ann Chad Cary
Storyboard Text
- Mary Ann Shadd Cary was part of a free African American family. She was the eldest of 13 children being born on October 9, 1823. Her family lived in Wilmington, Delaware.
- Her father Abraham Doras Shadd, worked as an abolitionist newspaper called the Liberator, working under William Lloyd Garrison.
- Her family that helped slaves that escaped were in for more danger when the Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act. It meant that slaves who escaped could be returned to enslavement even if they were in free states. Because of that her family decided to move to the free state of Pennsylvania.
- She studied in school and later on became a teacher. She later opened a school for BOTH black and white students. She ended up being the first female newspaper writer in North America that wrote the Black newspaper The Provincial Freeman. She was also the second African American woman to get a Laws Degree.
- The law could also punish people like her family for helping the "fugitive” slaves. When that law passed she moved to Ontario, Canada where she married a man named Thomas J. Cary. They ended up having 2 kids, Linton Shadd Cary and Sarah Elizabeth Cary.
- After the war ended, she enrolled in the first class of Howard University Law School located in Washington, DC. She attended evening classes at Howard and taught local children during the day.
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