Editing Abigail Adams (section)

===Slavery and race===
Adams opposed the existence of [[slavery in the United States]] and saw it as a threat to American democracy. In a letter she wrote on March 31, 1776, Adams doubted that the majority of White people in Virginia had such "passion for Liberty" as they claimed they did, since they "deprive[d] their fellow Creatures" of freedom.<ref name="uua"/>

A notable incident regarding Adams's views on race happened in [[Philadelphia]] in 1791, when a [[Free Negro|free black youth]] came to her house asking to be taught how to read and write. Adams subsequently placed the boy in a local evening school, though not without objections from a neighbor. Adams responded that he was "a Freeman as much as any of the young Men and merely because his face is black, is he to be denied instruction? How is he to be qualified to procure a livelihood?&nbsp;... I have not thought it any disgrace to my self to take him into my parlor and teach him both to read and write."<ref name="13Feb97-letters">{{cite web|title=Letter from Abigail Adams to John Adams, 13 February 1797|url=http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/|website=Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive.|publisher=Massachusetts Historical Society|access-date=July 4, 2016|archive-date=July 16, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120716205713/http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Despite her abolitionist views, Adams still held [[Racism in the United States|racist views]] during her life. After attending a 1785 production of ''[[Othello]]'' in [[London]], Adams wrote in a letter of her "disgust and horror" at seeing the [[Othello (character)|play's titular protagonist]], a Black man, touching the character of [[Desdemona]], a White woman. Historian [[Annette Gordon-Reed]] stated that Adams's views on race were in line with a "typical white person of the 18th century".<ref>{{cite magazine|title=Thomas Jefferson: Was the Sage a Hypocrite?|url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,994568,00.html|magazine=Time|date=July 5, 2004 |access-date=January 28, 2023 |last1=Gordon-Reed |first1=Annette }}</ref>