1. Abolitionists
- William Lloyd Garrison, editor of the anti-slavery newspaper The Liberator
- Frederick Douglass, escaped slave and prominent abolitionist speaker
- Wendell Phillips, prominent abolitionist orator and activist
- John Brown, radical abolitionist who organized raids on pro-slavery areas
2. Slaves and Freed Slaves
- Nat Turner, leader of a slave rebellion in Virginia in 1831
- Sojourner Truth, escaped slave and abolitionist speaker
- Harriet Tubman, escaped slave who made numerous trips back to the South to help other slaves escape on the Underground Railroad
- William Wells Brown, escaped slave and writer who published an autobiography and other works detailing the horrors of slavery
3. Religious Leaders
- Theodore Parker, prominent Unitarian minister and abolitionist
- William Ellery Channing, prominent Unitarian minister and abolitionist
- Moncure D. Conway, Methodist minister and abolitionist
- Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of the anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin
4. Politicians
- Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States and leader of the Union during the Civil War
- Ulysses S. Grant, General of the Union Army during the Civil War and later President of the United States
- Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury under Lincoln and an abolitionist
- Charles Sumner, U.S. Senator from Massachusetts and a vocal opponent of slavery
5. Intellectuals, Writers, and Artists
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, prominent Transcendentalist writer and a supporter of abolitionism
- Henry David Thoreau, Transcendentalist writer and author of "Civil Disobedience"
- John Greenleaf Whittier, poet and abolitionist
- Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of the anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin
- Josiah Wedgwood, English potter and abolitionist who commissioned the iconic pottery medallion "Am I Not a Man and a Brother?"
6. General Public
- The Republican Party, formed in 1854 as an anti-slavery political party.
- Northern Democrats, many of whom supported abolitionism.
- The Underground Railroad, a network of people who helped slaves escape to the North.
- The thousands of Northern soldiers who fought in the Civil War to end slavery.
Throughout the abolitionist movement, the support for ending slavery grew as many individuals across the United States joined forces to advocate for its abolition, leading to landmark events like the Emancipation Proclamation and eventually the abolition of slavery with the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution.