"Mary Ann Shadd"(October 9,1823-June 1893)

Was born to Abraham and Harriet Shadd both free-born blacks,in Wilmington,Delaware.She was the oldest in her family of 13 children.Her father,a shoemaker was a key figure in the

Underground Railroad and a subscription agent for William Lloyd Garrison's abolitionist newspaper The Liberator.When she was ten,Mary ann and her family moved from their home in Delaware to West Chester,Pennsylvania and New York City.When the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 in the United States threatened to return free northern blacks and escaped slaves to bondage.Mary Ann and her brother moved to Canada and settled in Windsor,Ontario.In Windsor,she founded racially integrated school with support of the American Missionary Association.Her support for racial integration embroiled her in public dispute with Henry Bibb,the established leader in the black community in Canada.Henry newspaper,The Voice of the Fugitive,attacked Mary ideas and character,leading her to find The Provincial Freeman in 1853,along with Samuel Ringgold Ward.The paper quickly folded,but Mary and Samuel revived it a year later from an office in King Street,Toronto. The paper continued to be published until 1859 promoting temperance,moral reform,civil rights and black self-help while attacking the racial discrimination blacks faced within North America.It was one of the longest published black newspaper until the Civil War.She believed that seperate churches,schools,and communities,for blacks would ultimately undermine the search for freedom.Mary champaigned for equality and integration for black people,making public speeches and addressing issues of abolition and other reforms.Eventually,many of her family members,including her father and sisters,joined her in Canada.In 1856 she married Thomas F. Cary,a barber from Toronto who was involved with the newspaper.They had two children,Sarah and Linton,and lived in Chatham,Ontario.where she continued to work on her newspaper and teach school.In 1858, John Brown held a secret "convention "at the home of her brother Isaac.In 1861,she published the Voice from Harper's Ferry, a tribute to Henry unsuccessful raid.After her husband died in 1860 Mary Ann and her children returned to the United States.During the Civil War,she served as a recruiting officer to enlist black volunteers for the Union Army in the state of Indiana.After the Civil War,she taught black schools in Wilmington,before moving to  Washington D.C. ,where she taught in public schools and attended Howard University School of Law.She graduated as a lawyer in 1883,becoming only the second black woman in the United States to earn a law degree.She wrote for the newspaper National Era and the People Advocate.She joined the National Woman's Suffrage Association,working alongside Susan B. Anthony  and Elizabeth Cady Stanton for women's suffrage,testifying before the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives and becoming the first black woman to cast a vote in a national election.Mary died in Washington D.C. on June 5.Her residence in the U street Corridor was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1976.