Henry Clarke Wright

Henry Clarke Wright (August 29, 1797 – August 16, 1870) was an American abolitionist, pacifist, anarchist and feminist. He was fervent in his beliefs and often was more extreme in his rhetoric than other peace activists or abolitionists. Wright was a close friend of William Lloyd Garrison and the two men collaborated on many issues. Wright was also a supporter of universal suffrage and women's rights.

Early life Wright was born in Sharon, Connecticut, on August 29, 1797. His father was Seth Wright, a farmer and house-joiner who was also veteran of the American Revolutionary War. Wright's father was an authoritarian and controlling parent. The religion that Wright was raised with was in the Westminster Catechism tradition. In 1801, when he was four, the family moved to the "western country" of Hartwick in upstate New York. He didn't complete the apprenticeship and left through a "mutual agreement" with his employer, David Bright. Wright experienced an emotional religious conversion in 1817 and he went on to join the Presbyterian Church. He went on to study first under the local minister. In 1819, he attended the Andover Theological Seminary. He started out by studying around 16 hours every day while eating a diet of "crackers, milk and water." Wright also saw abolition as a civil rights and human rights issue.thumb Engraving of Henry C. Wright and unknown child.Wright became involved in the American Peace Society (APS) along with Garrison and others in 1835. During that year, Wright worked as "traveling agent" for the APS. He traveled almost 2,000 miles throughout the Northeast during this summer when he worked as an agent. He resigned from the APS after working this job for three months because his anti-violence stance was too radical for the groups "comparatively conservative executive committee." During his work, he found that many children he worked with were bullied for their involvement in the abolition movement. Later, he became known as "the Children's Preacher" because of his work with young people. His book, A Kiss for a Blow, was written for children and emphasized using kindness as a strategy against all kinds of violence, "playful" or otherwise. Wright also contributed work to the children's magazine, The Slave's Friend. While there were some in the abolition movement that found it strange that Wright would advocate for slave violence, it was consistent with Wright's thinking. Wright believed that slave owners were no better than kidnappers who had already inflicted violence by owning people. Wright believed in arming slave rebellions.

Support for women's rights While Wright was sympathetic to women carrying unwanted pregnancies, he believed that abortion was a form of murder. He had harsh words for husbands who abused their position of authority at home and in sexual relations with their wives. Wright believed that sex shouldn't be forced onto women.

In speeches during the summer of 1865, Wright was also an advocate of woman's suffrage, and immediately after the Civil War was one of the early advocates of "universal suffrage," – extending the vote "without regard to color or to sex." Wright spoke out against state laws intended to disenfranchise Black voters passed during Reconstruction.

Wright's nonresistant views influenced many women in the abolition movement in the late 1830s.

Writing and speeches Wright was a lifelong diarist and journal-keeper. Wright published his autobiography, Human Life, in 1849.

Wright was one of a few men who published books in the mid-nineteenth century advocating the wife's control of marital relations, his first being Marriage and Parentage; Or, The Reproductive Element in Man, as a Means to His Elevation and Happiness, published in 1854, and his second, The Unwelcome Child; Or, The Crime of an Undesigned and Undesired Child, published in 1858. Both books promoted sexual responsibility within marriage and argued that because women bore the consequences of the sexual act, wives should have the right to decline sexual relations.

Wright's speech, "The Natick Resolution," was given to around 800 listeners on November 20, 1859. In his speech, he called for immediate slave resistance and aid to all who are rebelling against their owners. The cause of death was determined to be apoplexy. Garrison gave the sermon at Wright's funeral. Wright was buried in Swan Point Cemetery and an inscribed obelisk, created by Photius Fisk was erected as a monument.