894) Charles C. Burleigh

Charles Calistus Burleigh (1810 - 1878). American abolitionist and journalist, who fought against Connecticut's "Black Law" and enlisted participants in the Underground Railroad 

.Burleigh was the antislavery editor of The Unionist and also the editor of The Pennsylvania Freeman after 1844. He served as secretary of the American Anti-Slavery Society beginning in 1836, and was the editor of its annual reports. He traveled around the Northeast, particularly in Pennsylvania, visiting antislavery societies and helping other groups to organize their own anti-slavery groups.
In 1863 he was the first speaker of the Free Congregational Society of Florence. Burleigh spoke on subjects such as abolition, woman's suffrage, welfare, social reform. Other speakers who shared his stage were Ralph Waldo Emerson, Bronson and Louisa Alcott, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony.  

He was known as an effective and colorful orator, with very long hair and beard that he had vowed not to cut until slavery had ended in the United States.

- "The speaker was tall and slim, with long arms, long legs, and a profusion of auburn or reddish hair hanging in ringlets down his shoulders; while a huge beard of the same colour fell upon his breast."  http://civilwaref.blogspot.com/…/robert-purvis-born-august-…

- "... reddish hair which curls slightly and falls gracefully over his shoulders..."  https://books.google.it/books…