12016-08-08T15:24:04-07:00Jazmin2ccdcf90af4ab5fdaa8e71351111ca2dc9435e1298787plain2016-08-13T14:21:55-07:00Jazmin2ccdcf90af4ab5fdaa8e71351111ca2dc9435e12Mary Ann Shadd was born in October 1823 in Wilmington, Delaware. She was the oldest of 13 children. When she was a child the Shadd family moved to West Chester, Pennsylvania where Shadd was able to attend a Quaker School. Afterwards, Shadd became a teacher herself, educating Black students in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New York until 1850 when the Fugitive Slave Act made it dangerous for her to do so. Shadd moved to Windsor, Ontario where she founded a racially integrated school and started a weekly newspaper called The Provincial Freeman. This paper, along with her pamphlet "Notes on Canada West," encouraged Black people in America to immigrate to Canada. The Provincial Freeman ran from 1953 to 1957 and was the first Canadian paper helmed by a woman. During this time Shadd also traveled throughout Canada and the United States, giving lectures and raising funds to assist people who had escaped enslavement.
Shadd moved back to the United States and worked as a recruiting officer in Indiana for the Union Army. After the Civil War she moved back to the East coast and was able to resume teaching Black students in Delaware and Washington DC. She also continued to give lectures about the rights of Blacks and white women. Eventually Shadd decided to attend Howard University's School of Law. She graduated in 1883, at age 60. She was the second Black woman in the United States to earn a law degree. Her home in DC is part of Washington DC's African American Heritage Trail and is a National Historic Landmark.
12016-08-12T13:06:49-07:00Jazmin2ccdcf90af4ab5fdaa8e71351111ca2dc9435e12Mary Ann Shadd1media/cary2.jpgplain2016-08-12T13:06:49-07:00Jazmin2ccdcf90af4ab5fdaa8e71351111ca2dc9435e12
