Those individuals who constantly made the North keenly aware of the condition of the black man in the South by using their words were much more important proponents of freedom than those who made the North aware of their condition through violent uprising. To fundamentally change a society, the minds of those inhabiting the society must be changed by a movement or idea, or the society as a whole must be destroyed and replaced, usually by violent means as war.
The two forms of resistance to slavery in antebellum America sought to achieve freedom for the black man, each in one of the two ways previously listed. Abolitionist writers, activists, and politicians tried to push their goal across the nation with a more democratic approach; To change the society, they would have to convince those inhabiting it that their ideas were the right ideas, and they would have to change the government as they saw it necessary. This was achieved through the widespread publication of written works on the topic, and by speakers advocating and making themselves heard by the masses. The logistics of it were feasible as well; ideas could travel as quickly as telegraph lines could send messages, as quickly as paper could arrive to its destination by train, and as quickly as mouths could speak the words. Notable figures in this movement include the likes of Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison, and Frederick Douglass.
On the other hand, slaves who did not escape and go on to write about their ordeals but still wanted change as fiercely as any man could want anything rebelled; To change the society, they would raze the institutions that held them in bondage to the ground. This course of action was less feasible than its non-violent counterpart, as in order to achieve their goal they would have to fight past local, state, and national militaries in order to get a chance at razing the homes and plantations of slaveowners. This approach also offers the additional detriment of destroying important infrastructure and causing huge losses of human life. These violent uprisings were attempted in several different forms, most notably the rebellions of Gabriel Prosser, Denmark Vesey, and Nat Turner(Use Africans in America for context on both Turner and Brown, good information and satisfies the cite requirement).
Wendell Phillips was born in Boston in the November of 1811, and graduated Harvard Law in 1833. He opened a practice shortly thereafter, but a mere three years later, stopped practicing law to advocate for the abolishment of slavery nationwide. Phillips “went on dozens of  'Abolitionizing' trips throughout the neighboring towns in Massachusetts or beyond the borders of the state.”1 In this manner, he was able to reach the ears and minds of an “estimated... 50,000 people.”2 From these spawned written accounts of Phillips' speeches, “estimated... that almost 5,000,000 read them.”3 Out of the 31,000,000 people living in the Union by 18604, 5,050,000  is not a negligible number. Phillips' works had considerable impact upon the people by statistics on their own, and as with any change or event, word of mouth most certainly carried his words farther than did his books or speeches alone.
Prosser, on the other hand, did not strive to achieve freedom for him and his fellows as peacefully as a man like Phillips did. Born into slavery in 1776, Prosser's profession was in smithing. Previously guilty of assault of a plantation owner5, he attempted the planning of a slave rebellion; in this rebellion Prosser's forces would march into Richmond, Virginia, and raze the city. They planned on using fire to destroy those buildings which they deemed worthy of being set alight. The rebellion was postponed, however, and betrayed by a fellow slave.6 His rebellion did not, as a result, have very much of a meaningful impact on the state of slavery at all. In fact, his rebellion could not have feasibly had much of an effect on Virginia at all. Howard Zinn tells us that, “In 1831, Virginia was an armed and garrisoned state... . With a total population of 1,211,405, the State of Virginia was able to field a militia force of 101,488 men, including cavalry, artillery, grenadiers, riflemen, and light infantry!"7 Without a force nearly as organized, large, or well-equipped, it could never have been anything but a spark that faded as soon as it came into existence. In reality, it was a mistake by Prosser that caused him and twenty-three of his fellows to be hanged on October 10th, 1800.
Nat Turner, however, led a very successful slave revolt. Born into slavery in October of 1800, he claimed to have been guided by God to escape his bondage, then return to aid his brethren still in chains. He convinced several of his fellows to follow him into armed rebellion, and during the course of the rebellion their group picked up more slaves to grow to a maximum of 70 rebels. They killed 60 whites, and were eventually stopped by both the aforementioned Virginia militia, and U.S. Army troops. 55 of the men were hanged, although Turner himself managed to stay hidden for approximately two months, and died on November 11.8 This rebellion, it could be argued, was successful. It did not remove a great part of the architecture of slavery on its own, no, but it made slaveowners in Virginia fearful, and as a result they began to rethink their position on slavery, very nearly voting to dispose of it. It also caused the country to talk, which sparked the flow of antislavery ideas to those who were previously indifferent, and renewed the efforts of those who advocated for the freedom of the slave. However, this success came with heavy consequences. In retaliation for the destruction caused by Turner and his band of rebels, white mobs attacked and killed approximately 200 black individuals, “many of whom had nothing to do with the rebellion.”9 His influence on William Lloyd Garrison is evidence of the nation paying attention to the violence he had caused.
Garrison was born in the December of 1805, and was one of, if not the most radical prominent Abolitionist. He was decidedly against violence and stressed what he called "moral suasion", which is simply the strategy of appeal to ethos. The first publication of his anti-slavery newspaper rang with the words, “AND I WILL BE HEARD.”10 And heard he was. Although his paper only attracted less than 400 subscriptions within its second year in print, he managed to develop a strong following in the North.11 Over the course of his time as author for the the Liberator, he published 1,820 issues of the paper.12 After Turner's rebellion, the state of North Carolina indicted him for He founded anti-slavery societies, but tried to keep them from aligning with any political parties. He suffered a quiet death at the hands of kidney failure on May 24, 1879. His works, similarly to Phillips', reached a great many eyes and minds over the course of their distribution, evidenced by his financial stability in his paper, his organizations, and his notoriety as an Abolitionist; not only radical, but prominent.
Similarly to Garrison, Frederick Douglass was another highly influential and peaceful advocate for the emancipation of the slave, if less radical. Born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey in the February of 1818, he escaped the bondage he was born into by jumping aboard a train headed for Philadelphia, and then crossing the Susquehanna River, and finally taking a steamboat up the Delaware River. He became an extremely influential advocate for the abolition of slavery, both in his oration and in the penned word.
(use the works of Douglass to contrast Denmark Vesey, use Zinn for context)