movements—how do the voiceless use their voice to effect change? The poet Audre Lorde would famously say many years later that “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” Yet with abolition, few quotes more widely miss the mark—and that’s a good thing. Not just because Clarkson quite brilliantly collected the various tools of slavery—thumbscrews and chains and whips—which he then displayed to devastating effect at meetings and speeches.
