Plot Synopsis

THE ABOLITIONISTS tells the stories of five anti-slavery activists -- Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Angelina Grimke, Harriet Beecher Stowe and John Brown -- whose intertwined lives and shared beliefs come together as they fought body and soul in the most important civil rights crusade in American history. The series reveals how the movement shaped history by exposing the fatal flaw of a republic founded on liberty for some and bondage for others, setting the nation on a collision course. In the face of personal risks -- beatings, imprisonment, even death -- these abolitionists held fast to their cause, laying the civil rights groundwork for the future and raising weighty constitutional and moral questions that are with us still. To commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, PBS presented this three-part program on consecutive Tuesdays in January 2013 as episodes of AMERICAN EXPERIENCE.