Wedgwood anti-slavery medallion

[3] These cameos were worn as pendants, inlaid in snuff boxes, and used to adorn bracelets and hair pins, rapidly becoming fashionable symbols of the British abolition movement.

[5][1] Contemporary interpretations of the medallion emphasize that while the design recognizes the commonality of enslaved people, it simultaneously consigns them to a place of weakness and deference to white society.

[5][1] Mary Guyatt writes,[1] Not only is the slave depicted in a weak posture, supplicating on bended knees and emasculated by his chains, but it is implicit that his appeal is addressed to white society as well as to Heaven.

And since supplication demands that a hierarchy of power is established, the slave is clearly the submissive party, a non-threatening object whose purpose is to arouse pity in the hearts of potential converts to the abolitionists' cause.

[1][3] Wedgwood's anti-slavery cameos were eventually used to adorn a variety of items including snuff boxes, shoe buckles, bracelets, and hair pins which were commercially available in Britain and the United States.

[8][9] African American men participating in the 1968 Memphis sanitation strike carried posters reading "I AM A MAN"—a slogan that has often been traced to the Wedgwood medallion.