October 12

Kamini Roy, Edwin Abbott Abbott, Elizabeth Fry, Calvin Fairbank, and Lily Ledbetter

Author

David Barnhart
October 12, 2025

Stourhead House & Gardens, England, 2011. Own photo.

Today is the birthday, in 1864, of Kamini Roy, a Bengali poet and feminist who worked for women’s rights in India. 

Today marks the death, in 1926, of Edwin Abbott Abott, an English priest, theologian, and educator who wrote, among other things, the mathematical fantasy Flatland. His open-minded approach to theology, education, and life are exemplified by the two-dimensional hero of his book who, on learning that there are three dimensions, hypothesizes that there could be more than three—and is ridiculed for it. Flatland had an impact on my own views of theology and life. 

Today also marks the death, in 1845, of Elizabeth Fry, an English Quaker prison reformer whose birthday we noted on May 21. 

Today marks the death, in 1898, of Calvin Fairbank, a Methodist pastor who helped nearly 50 enslaved persons escape on the Underground Railroad. He served seventeen years in prison for his liberation work for violating the Fugitive Slave Law. 

Today also marks the death, in 2024, of Lily Ledbetter, an Alabamian whose fight for fair pay for women eventually became law. She lost her case before the Supreme Court and Goodyear never paid restitution for the $200,000 it owed her. Her memoir is titled Grace and Grit: My Fight for Equal Pay and Fairness at Goodyear and Beyond.

Reflection: 

Kamini Roy wrote: 

“The male desire to rule is the primary, if not the only, stumbling block to women’s enlightenment… They are extremely suspicious of women’s emancipation. Why? The same old fear—‘Lest they become like us’.”

Calvin Fairbank wrote: 

“Forty-seven slaves I guided toward the North Star, in violation of the state codes of Kentucky and Virginia. I piloted them through the forests, mostly by night, – girls fair and white, dressed as ladies; men and boys, as gentlemen or servants – men in women’s clothes, and women in men’s clothes; on horseback, in buggies, in carriages, common wagons, in and under loads of hay, straw, old furniture, boxes and bags; crossed the Jordan of the slave, swimming, or wading chin deep, or in boats, or skiffs, on rafts, and often on a pine log. And I never allowed one to be recaptured. For aiding these slaves to escape from their bondage, I was twice imprisoned, – in all seventeen years and four months; and received… thirty-five thousand, one hundred and five stripes from a leather strap…”

Prayer: God, make us always aware that there are more dimensions and more awe-inspiring ways to view our own context. Let that vision give us the courage to change. Amen.