The Forten Women
The Forten Women namely; Charlotte Forten (mother), Sarah Forten (daughter), Margaretta Forten (daughter), Harriet Forten (daughter) and Charlotte Forten (granddaughter) supported the abolitionist movement with their intellect and finances. Through three generations, they organized public lectures and informational fairs all in a bid to tear down the fortresses of slavery and are also recorded to have assisted runaway slaves in diverse ways. Their contributions to the Civil Right movement and humanity as a whole moved the Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whittier to hail them in a poem entitled; ‘To the Daughters of James Forten’.
