Mary Ellen Pleasant (born 19 August ?1814-1817 - died 4 January 1904) was a 19th Century female entrepreneur of partial African descent widely known as Mammy Pleasant, who used her fortune to further the abolitionist movement. She worked on the Underground Railroad across many states and then helped bring it to California during the Gold Rush Era. She was a friend and financial supporter of John Brown and well known in abolitionist circles. After the Civil War she took her battles to the courts in the 1860s, and won several civil rights victories, one of which was cited and upheld in the 1980s and resulted in her being called “The Mother of Human Rights in California”.
Read more about Mary Ellen Pleasant: Early Years, Prominence, Career and Marriages, San Francisco Court Case, 1866, Scandals and Smears, 1884-1954, Rediscovery
Famous quotes containing the words mary, ellen and/or pleasant:
“Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”
—Bible: New Testament, Luke 10:41,42.
Jesus to Martha.
“I have eyes to see now what I have never seen before.”
—Anonymous, U.S. correspondence student. As quoted in The Life of Ellen H. Richards, ch. 9, by Caroline L. Hunt, quoting Ellen Swallow Richards (1912)
“I thank those who were good enough to say something pleasant about the incoming administration, for I am glad to get it now. I heard of the man who went into office with a majority and went out with unanimity.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)