Interview: Abigail Adams on Human Trafficking

Each week, I will be bringing you a new interview with a formerly-active activist or abolitionist, that is, someone now deceased.  I'll be talking to the men and women who paved the way for the abolitionists of today and getting their thoughts on the problems and solutions of modern-day slavery.  How do I contact not just the dead, but the famous and dead?  Every good blogger must have her secrets!

This week... Abigail Adams

How's the afterlife treating you?

Great.  I can write all the letters my heart desires and the mail even comes on Sundays!

For those non-biography readers out there, how about you tell me a little about yourself.

I was the wife of John Adams, first Vice President and second President, and I was an active abolitionist and activist for women's rights.  I believed that slavery was a true social and personal evil and a threat to the American democratic experiment. I wrote prolific letters to my husband and other powerful men urging for the abolition of slavery and equality for women and black people.

What do you think is the biggest problem in the modern-day abolitionist movement?

Activists and abolitionists today too often allow themselves to feel powerless, to be swallowed up by the vast and complex issues they tackle.  You are only as powerless as you choose to be, no matter what society has told you.

If you were alive, what would you do to fight slavery?

I would write letters to the editors of news and media publications, and I would urge other people to do the same.  If you aren't able to change the rules yourself, get someone who can to listen to what you have to say.

Any last thoughts for our readers?

Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands.  Do it yourself.