Murder of Elijah Parish Lovejoy

Date: November 7, 1837 • Location: Upper Alton, United States

American abolitionist Elijah Parish Lovejoy was murdered by a pro-slavery mob in Alton, Illinois, during an attack to destroy his printing press and abolitionist materials.

In the United States, abolitionism, the movement that sought to end chattel slavery in the country, was active from the colonial era until the American Civil War, the end of which brought about the abolition of American Chattel Slavery, except as punishment for a crime, through the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.