Wendell Phillips
Wendell Phillips (November 29, 1811 – February 2, 1884) was an American abolitionist, advocate for Native Americans, orator, and attorney. According to George Lewis Ruffin, a Black attorney, Phillips was seen by many Blacks as "the one white American wholly color-blind and free from race prejudice". According to another Black attorney, Archibald Grimké, as an abolitionist leader he is ahead of William Lloyd Garrison and Charles Sumner. From 1850 to 1865 he was the "preeminent figure" in American abolitionism. Early life and education Phillips was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on November 29, 1811, to Sarah Walley and John Phillips, a wealthy lawyer, politician, and philanthropist, who was the first mayor of Boston. He was a descendant of Reverend George Phillips, who emigrated from England to Watertown, Massachusetts, in 1630. All of his ancestors migrated to North America from England, and all of them arrived in Massachusetts between the years 1630 and 1650. Phillips was schooled at Boston Latin School, and graduated from Harvard College in 1831. He went on to attend Harvard Law School, from which he graduated in 1833. In 1834, Phillips was admitted to the Massachusetts state bar, and in the same year, he opened a law practice