Daughter and granddaughter of men who had been enslaved, Ellen Garrison (1823-1892) was an antislavery activist from an early age. At 12 years old she desegregated the Concord Bicentennial Parade, marching hand-in-hand with her white neighbor, Abba Prescott.

Garrison was born and raised in The Robbins House in Concord, Massachusetts to a progressively active family. Her grandfather was farmer, laborer and Revolutionary War veteran, Caesar Robbins, and her father, Jack Garrison, escaped slavery in New Jersey. Described as bright and intelligent, Garrison attended public school where she was the only Black student.

In the 1840’s she moved to Boston, became a member of the African American Church and began to teach. With other activists, Garrison promoted the abolitionist community and, as an activist, worked to eliminate discrimination in the public transportation and school systems.

After the Civil War, she moved to Maryland where she taught newly freed people during Reconstruction.

In 1866, nearly a century before Rosa Parks, Garrison and a friend were forcibly removed from a segregated waiting room in a Baltimore train station. Despite testimony from witnesses and the passage of the month-old Civil Rights Act, a Maryland grand jury dismissed their suit against the railroad.

Following a decade in Kansas, where she continued to teach newly freed people, Garrison moved to Pasadena, California, where she lived with her family in an egalitarian, antislavery community. Here she is buried with antislavery activists.

Representational image courtesy of The Robbins House