This day in history: November 7
1837: Elijah Parish Lovejoy was killed by a pro-slavery mob
On November 7, 1837, Elijah Parish Lovejoy was killed by a pro-slavery mob while defending the site of his anti-slavery newspaper the St Louis Observer. His death both deeply affected many individuals who opposed slavery and greatly strengthened the cause of abolition.
Elijah Parish Lovejoy, 1802-1837, printer and abolitionist… Illus. in: Magazine of American History, 1891 May 10, v. 10, p. 364. Prints & Photographs Division
In 1832, caught up in the powerful religious revival movement sweeping the U.S. and its frontier territories, Lovejoy experienced a conversion, which led him to sell his interests in the paper and enroll in Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey. Two years later, a group of St. Louis businessmen, who sought to start a newspaper to promote religious and moral education, recruited Lovejoy to return to the city as editor of the St. Louis Observer.
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