Document 2
… There were tactical differences between [Frederick] Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison,
white abolitionist and editor of The Liberator—differences between black [African American]
and white abolitionists in general. Blacks were more willing to engage in armed insurrection
[rebellion], but also more ready to use existing political devices—the ballot box, the
Constitution—anything to further their cause. They were not as morally absolute in their tactics
as the Garrisonians. Moral pressure would not do it alone, the blacks knew; it would take all sorts
of tactics, from elections to rebellion.…
White abolitionists did courageous and pioneering work, on the lecture platform, in newspapers,
in the Underground Railroad. Black abolitionists, less publicized, were the backbone of the
antislavery movement. Before Garrison published his famous Liberator in Boston in 1831, the
first national convention of Negroes had been held, David Walker had already written his
“Appeal,” and a black abolitionist magazine named Freedom’s Journal had appeared. Of The
Liberator’s first twenty-five subscribers, most were black.…
Source: Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States, 1492–Present, Harper Perennial, 2003
According to Howard Zinn, what was one method used by abolitionists to achieve their goals?