Gomes Eanes de Zurara
Gomes Eanes de Zurara was a fifteenth-century Portuguese writer. He used his storytelling skills to paint a heroic portrait of Prince Henry and King John's colonization of Morocco. Zurara defended Portuguese colonialism, arguing that the purpose of slavery was to civilize and Christianize African “savages.” Zurara's book has been viewed as containing the first description of the inferiority of people of African descent. His book was widely acclaimed in Europe, and the harmful ideas and agendas outlined in the chronicle became deeply embedded in the European psyche. Kendi argues that Zurara's writing had a profound impact on slavery and racism in the United States.
John Cotton
Cotton was a sixteenth-century clergyman in England who later became an acclaimed Puritan minister in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He was a devout follower of Aristotle and a founder of Harvard University. Puritans believed that they were chosen or 'elected' by God to be saved, and that those who were not predestined to go to heaven were simply inferior. Cotton mixed these Puritan beliefs with Aristotelian arguments about natural hierarchy. This combination of beliefs was at the origin of the deep racist attitudes toward Native Americans and Africans, who were seen as both naturally inferior and spiritually damned.
Richard Mather
Reverend Richard Mather was a Puritan minister who moved to Massachusetts from England. His personal history is entwined with that of John Cotton. In Stamped, he is described as a devout follower of Aristotle and a founder of Harvard University. Like Cotton, Mather spread the idea of human hierarchy and considered Africans to be the lowest on the chain.
Cotton Mather
Cotton Mather was the grandson of Richard Mather. Through marriage, he was also a descendent of John Cotton. He attended Harvard University at just eleven years old, and upon graduation, he became a notable preacher. Having grown up in an educated and elite family, Cotton Mather was worried that a growing dissent among poor Americans would cause him to lose his fame and fortune. Seeing that his prestige was threatened, Cotton Mather aimed to create hysteria. In the 1690s, Cotton Mather staged a witch hunt in order to distract from the class conflict that threatened the Puritan social order. Tituba, an enslaved woman of Afro-Indigenous descent, was the first to be accused of witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts. As the trials continued, it became clear that those who were accused of witchcraft were people of color and marginal members of society. Cotton Mather used the witch trials to depict Black and Indigenous people as "devilish threats," and he passed a series of racist laws in order to control these populations. Because Massachusetts was the first American colony, these laws were later adopted by other states.
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was a founding father who served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. Although Jefferson is often portrayed in history books as the "father of American democracy, Stamped offers a different perspective. Throughout his career, Jefferson held hypocritical and self-contradictory viewpoints. Although Jefferson "denounced" slavery in his writings, he owned hundreds of slaves and profited greatly from the plantation economy. Jefferson also had sexual relationships with some of his slaves, thus further exploiting his position of power. Later in his career, Jefferson advocated for Africans to be shipped back to their native land in order to "civilize the African continent." Jefferson was also an advocate for moving all slaves to Louisiana in order to keep them separate from the White South. Jefferson is an important character in Stamped, as he exemplifies the complicated legacy of American political leaders.
Phillis Wheatley
Phillis Wheatley was an 18th-century writer and the first African-American author of a book of poetry. She was born in West Africa and was sold into slavery at a young age. Wheatley's masters raised her as their own child, and she was granted educational privileges that were denied to other slaves. In the 18th century, most Americans defended slavery by arguing that Africans were intellectually inferior by nature. Wheatley's success challenged this perspective, yet her work continued to go unrecognized in American Enlightenment circles. Wheatley's work was more accepted in Great Britain, and British politicians used Wheatley as an example to denounce the American slavery system. The American slavery system was the backbone of the New World's economy, and the United States was growing increasingly wary of their relationship to the Old World. Great Britain's politicized celebration of Wheatley was part of what prompted American leaders to draft the Declaration of Independence and sever their ties with the Old World.
William Lloyd Garrison
William Lloyd Garrison was a prominent American abolitionist and journalist during the early 19th century. He is best known for his newspaper, the Liberator. Garrison used his white privilege to discuss matters with other white citizens and advocate for the immediate abolition of slavery. Although there were numerous Black abolitionists who fought for the eradication of slavery, Garrison's whiteness made him an "agreeable abolitionist." Garrison founded the American Anti-Slavery Society and published antislavery pamphlets that were widely distributed across the United States. Although he was an abolitionist, Garrison held some racist views. For example, he was an advocate for "gradual equality," which meant that he was hesitant about allowing Black people to integrate fully into white society. However, Garrison later confronted his own internalized racism and championed a more radically inclusive agenda.
Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass was a runaway slave from Maryland. Douglass documented his first-hand experience with slavery in his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. In Stamped, the authors demonstrate that Douglass's writing inspired other writers, such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, to denounce slavery and shift popularly-held viewpoints among white Americans.
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the American president from 1861-1865. Although Lincoln's legacy is widely seen as that of an honest and progressive American president, the authors of Stamped reiterate that he was a much more complicated figure than the historical canon suggests. Like Jefferson, Lincoln was inextricably tied to the economic benefits of slavery. His argument for abolition was grounded in his belief that the livelihood of white agricultural workers was threatened by black slaves. Lincoln wanted to abolish slavery for economic purposes, but he didn’t think Black people should have equal rights. When Lincoln later ran for president, his platform demonstrated his inherently racist agenda—he was against racial equality and against Black voting. Lincoln's discriminatory politics manifested in the years following the Emancipation Proclamation. Despite their freedom, former slaves faced unparalleled discrimination and were not able to assimilate into American society.
W.E.B. Du Bois
W.E.B. Du Bois was a prominent civil rights activist throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. The authors refer to Du Bois as the king of “uplift suasion,” because Du Bois urged for Black people to compete with the white population. Du Bois prided himself on his Harvard education, and he urged other Black citizens to conform to the structures of white institutions. Early in his career, Du Bois blamed Black people for being mistreated and supported the idea that all Black voters should be “educated” and “respectable.” Many argue that Du Bois’s biracial identity contributed to his ideas of exceptionalism and his promotion of exclusionary policies. Du Bois was receptive to criticism, and he was forced to confront his own privileges as an educated, biracial man from Massachusetts. Du Bois came to realize that his experience was not applicable to many other Black people, and by 1933, Du Bois abandoned his beliefs in uplift suasion. Instead, he took up a new school of thought that championed antiracist socialism as a way to build a more inclusive, antiracist rhetoric.
Booker T. Washington
Between 1890 and 1915, Booker T. Washington was the dominant leader in the African American community. While Du Bois and Washington both advocated for assimilation into white society, Washington argued that Black citizens should continue performing labor and “common work” for white society. Washington's perspective came from his experience as a biracial man in the post-Reconstruction era South. Jim Crow laws enforced discrimination, and access to jobs and education was limited for Black people. In addition, the rise of the KKK caused many Black citizens to fear taking a more radical, antiracist stance. Washington held the opinion that it was better for Black people to remain separate from white society as long as they were granted access to economic progress, education, and justice.
Ida B. Wells
Ida Bell Wells was a journalist and educator in the latter half of the 19th century. Her writing covered racial segregation, inequality, and lynching. Ida B. Wells served as a radical voice during the time that W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington were dominating the Black intellectual discourse. Through Wells's investigative journalism, she used statistics and quantitative data to conclude that lynching was a way to control Black citizens and their rising economic competition. She is widely regarded as an early leader in the civil rights movement.
Marcus Garvey
Marcus Garvey, a Jamaican activist, arrived in New York in 1916. Although he originally sought to receive funding from the NAACP, he was surprised to find that the organization only had white and light-skinned Black people as leaders. Upon noticing the Colorism that appeared to dominate the structural leadership of the NAACP, Garvey started the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). Garvey's activist career in America was cut short when he was deported.
Angela Davis
Angela Davis is an American political activist, philosopher, academic, and author. Following the death of four young black girls in her native Birmingham, Alabama, Davis began working as a prominent activist in the Black community. After studying in Germany, Davis returned to the United States and became an important leader in the Black Power movement. Although the Black Power movement championed a righteous cause, it was led entirely by men. Throughout her career, Davis struggled to find her place within activist organizations that were either "too white," "too capitalist," or "too male-dominated." Davis firmly believes that racism, sexism, capitalism, and heterosexism work together to compound oppression, and that consequently everyone must work collectively to eradicate these systems. Through her involvement with the Black Power movement, the feminist movement, and the prison abolition movement, Davis is a prominent leader who encourages collaborative work towards collective liberation.
Malcolm X
Malcolm X was a human rights activist and popular civil rights leader. He was widely regarded as a controversial leader, and many white Americans were fearful of his militant approach to civil rights. He was assassinated in 1965.
