A Protracted Struggle in an Era of Turmoil

The international abolitionist movement in the course of a few decades virtually eliminated slavery, one of the oldest and most widespread of human institutions, from the face of the earth. The sit-down strikes of the 1930s forced the mightiest US corporations to come to the table to bargain with their employees. The civil disobedience campaigns led by Gandhi won India’s independence from the world’s greatest imperial power.