The 13th Amendment is often celebrated as the landmark legislation that ended slavery in the United States. But 88% of Americans don’t know there’s an exception clause, allowing slavery and involuntary servitude to be used as punishment for crime, impacting 1.2M Americans still today. We needed to help the nonprofit advocacy organization Worth Rises drive awareness and demand change.
92% of Americans believe that slavery in any form is wrong. And changing the future means confronting the past.
200 years after President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, we brought back the man widely believed to have ended slavery and asked him to address the American nation one more time.
With a speech written by generative AI trained with historical records on Lincoln’s tone of voice and beliefs, our campaign sees Lincoln call on all Americans to tackle an issue of compassion and pass the Abolition Amendment. Working closely with Harold Holzer, the nation’s foremost Abraham Lincoln authority and Chairman of the Lincoln Forum, we ensured that the speech itself and Lincoln’s appearance, movements and voice were as authentic as possible. From the filler words he used when addressing the nation to his stutter and midwestern accent, the speech is a reflection of who President Lincoln was so many years ago — and who he would have been today. The campaign’s font is even inspired by Lincoln’s own handwriting.
Leveraging Lincoln’s past speeches and writings, we trained AI to write a new speech in Lincoln’s voice and developed a historically accurate CGI representation of the iconic president to give it. Working closely with Harold Holzer, the nation’s foremost Abraham Lincoln authority and Chairman of the Lincoln Forum, we ensured that the speech itself and Lincoln’s appearance, movements and voice were as authentic as possible. From the filler words he used when addressing the nation to his stutter and midwestern accent, the speech is a reflection of who President Lincoln was so many years ago — and who he would have been today. The campaign’s font is even inspired by Lincoln’s own handwriting.
Launching strategically ahead of the 2024 elections, the online and social campaign works to drive public education and legislative action, encouraging audiences to demand change on a federal level and pass the Abolition Amendment to end slavery once and for all.
