Reverend Garnet escaped slavery in 1925. The Reverend believed enslaved Africans and their decedents needed to be self-liberating. He attempted to develop a worldwide boycott of cotton in an effort to eradicate slavery and its effects on others.

He built an alliance with other countries and abolitionists of the oppressing race, white Americans. He encouraged other African Americans to not lose sight of the assured retribution for their fight for the abolition of slavery.

With his eloquent tongue, he wrote and delivered Call to Rebellion at the National Negro Convention in Buffalo, New York, calling for the immediate uprising of all slaves in 1843. This speech would later call for his decline in popularity with abolitionists.

He would be superseded by more moderate Frederick Douglass, who denounced his radical and violent persuasion of ending slavery.

Reverend Garnet served as a Presbyterian pastor in Troy, New York, in New York City, and in Washington, D.C. In 1881, he would pass away two months after arriving in Liberia to serve as minister there.