Mary Ann Shadd Cary was an American-Canadian anti-slavery activist, public speaker, journalist, publisher, teacher, and lawyer. She was the first Black woman publisher in North America and the first woman publisher in Canada. She was also the second Black woman to attend law school in the United States.

In Ontario in 1853, she started publishing a newspaper called the Provincial Freeman. It was a weekly paper that advocated for equality, integration, and self-education for Black people in Canada and the United States.

Mary and her family were involved with the Underground Railroad, which is why they ended up fleeing to Canada from the U.S. Once the Civil War started, however, Mary returned and began recruiting for the Union Army. Many years later, after the war was over, she decided to earn her law degree from Howard University School of Law at the age of 60, which helped further her work to bring equality to a continually unequal world.