James Miller McKim, a graduate of Dickinson College, was one of the great civil rights advocates of the nineteenth century. \u00a0He grew up in rural Pennsylvania at a time when the state was gradually abolishing slavery within its own borders.\u00a0 But in the early 1830s, as a young Presbyterian minister, McKim became a committed abolitionist –an impassioned opponent of Southern slavery– after reading fiery pamphlets by journalist William Lloyd Garrison.\u00a0 McKim encountered Garrison\u2019s radical views while visiting his barber, a local black leader, who helped tutor him in the antislavery cause.\u00a0 McKim soon joined the Garrisonian abolitionist movement, becoming close friends with figures such as Quaker feminist Lucretia Mott and with Theodore Weld, the organizer of a controversial band of abolitionist orators who traveled the North speaking out against slavery.\u00a0 McKim eventually settled in Philadelphia where he came to lead the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society and helped to organize Underground Railroad efforts, assisting runaway slaves in their dangerous escapes to freedom.\u00a0 McKim was at the center of the most famous escape of the era, the secret journey of Henry \u201cBox\u201d Brown from Richmond to Philadelphia in 1849, while Brown was hidden for over 24 hours inside of a shipping crate.<\/p>\n