[1] Before the American Civil War, he and his sister Mary Ann Shadd moved to Chatham, Ontario, and published the anti-slavery newspaper, The Provincial Freeman.

He was involved in the planning of the John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry and led the Chatham Vigilance Committee to rescue Sylvanus Demarest in 1858.

He returned to the United States and served as a member of the Mississippi House of Representatives during the Reconstruction era from 1871 until 1876.

[1][2][a] He was raised Catholic as one of thirteen children[5] of Harriet Burton Parnell and Abraham D. Shadd, both of whom were abolitionists.

[1][6] His father was born in Wilmington, Delaware, the paternal great-grandson of a Hessian soldier and a free black woman, Mrs. Elizabeth Jackson.

[7] Black children were not allowed to attend school in Delaware, so in 1833 Abraham moved the family five miles over the border to West Chester, Pennsylvania, in 1833.

[1] Shadd and his sister Mary Ann moved to Ontario, Canada, about the time that the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 (September 18, 1850) was enacted that made it easier for slave takers to take runaway and free people into slavery from northern states.

She also organized a number of religious, lecture and literary events for the community and contributed to The Provincial Freeman.

[9] Shadd and his sister Mary were both members of the Chatham Vigilance Committee that sought to prevent former slaves from being returned to the United States and brought back into slavery, such as the case of Sylvanus Demarest.

[1] Shadd moved his family back to the United States[3] and they lived in Davis Bend, Mississippi by 1870.

[3] He was appointed route agent for the United States Postal Service between Vicksburg and Memphis in 1883, a position that he held until 1885.

[1] When the Shadds lived in Mississippi, Amelia taught with support from the Board of Missions to the Freedmen and then in public schools.