Mary Ann Shadd Cary was born a free African American on October 9th, 1823 in Wilmington, Delaware. At the age of ten, her family moved to West Chester, Pennsylvania so Shadd Cary and her siblings could receive an education, a right denied to them in Delaware on account of their race. Throughout her childhood, Shadd Cary’s father, Abraham Shadd, was a “favorably known” abolitionist who rendered “valuable service to the ‘underground railroad’” by using their home as a station on enslaved people’s journey for freedom.
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