My 19th Century Soul-Mate

I have decided (perhaps by coercion, at first) to do a class presentation on Lydia Maria Child. Until three days ago, I had never even heard of her; but after only a matter of hours researching her, I have been sold to the persuasion that she is one of the coolest people that ever lived. Unlike the other transcendentalists, she actually put her life on the line for what she believed in--her radical abolitionist views. Lydia Maria Child published appeals for the emancipation of the African people in an age when men were being dragged through the streets with a rope around their neck, for having the same dispositions. I discovered an amazing quote from Child, which expresses her sentiments about the social uproar stirred by her most famous abolitionist work, "Appeal for that class of Americans called Africans." I promptly memorized it.

"I am fully aware of the unpopularity of the task I have undertaken; but though I expect ridicule and censure, it is not in my nature to fear them. A few years hence, the opinion of the world will be a matter in which I have not even the most transient interest; but this book will be abroad on its mission of humanity long after the hand that wrote it is mingling with the dust. Should it be the means of advancing, even one single hour, the inevitable progress of truth and justice, I would not exchange the consciousness for all Rothschild's wealth or Sir Walter's fame."

I think that Lydia Maria Child is on the same level of awesomeness as Xena.
Her devotion to truth and "moral beauty" strengthens her, and raises her to the status of "bad-ass" in my book.