Caleb Franz

Caleb Franz is program manager with Young Voices and the author of The Conductor: The Story of Rev. John Rankin, Abolitionism's Essential Founding Father, to be released October 15, 2024. It’s currently available for pre-order.

Posts by Caleb Franz

July 04, 2024

What to the Abolitionist Was the Fourth of July?

In academia and culture alike, it has become fashionable to dismiss the principles associated with American independence as shortsighted at best and intentionally exclusionary at worst. “Neither Jefferson nor most of the founders intended to abolish slavery,” wrote Nikole Hannah-Jones in the New York Times Magazine debut of the 1619 Project in August 2019. Continue Reading...

February 22, 2024

The Letters That Inspired the American Abolition Movement

One hundred and ninety-nine years ago today, a local paper out of Ripley, Ohio, published the final installment of a series of letters written by the Reverend John Rankin. They were addressed to his brother, Thomas, on the subject of American slavery. Continue Reading...