Anthony Benezet: Quaker, Abolitionist, Anti-Racist

This fervent biography of “a key figure not just in Western history but in world history” from journalist Chanoff (We’ll Fight It Out Here) establishes Benezet, a kindly teacher living in 18th-century Philadelphia, as not only a prime mover of the abolitionist movement, but, more significantly, one of the first white thinkers to make “unequivocal assertions” of the “mental and moral equality” of Black and white people. Chanoff identifies “the major inflection points” that formed Benezet’s radical humanist views, from his French Huguenot parents fleeing anti-Protestant persecution in 1713 when Benezet was two, to the family’s settling 16 years later in Pennsylvania, where Benezet became a devout Quaker. A “passionate” teacher, in 1750 he started a school for free and enslaved Black children—likely the first serious school of its kind. He also frequented the Philadelphia waterfront, speaking to free and enslaved Black people about their lives and origins. In 1754, he began to express his antiracist views in political tracts, which influenced a generation of abolitionists to come. Until his death in 1784, he published increasingly complex works of historical materialist–style analysis of slavery, continuously rejecting and disproving the idea that it was caused by a natural racial hierarchy. Chanoff’s account is minutely detailed, using Benezet’s own writings to trace his groundbreaking intellectual journey. It’s an enlightening look at a foundational but little remembered figure. (Sept.)