*John Anthony Copeland was born on this date in 1834. He was a free Black carpenter and abolitionist. John Anthony Copeland Jr. was born in Raleigh, North Carolina; his parents were John Anthony Copeland, a slave, and Delilah Evans, born a free black. Copeland Sr. was emancipated as a boy in about 1815. As a […]
learn more*Isaac Myers was born on this date in 1835. He was a pioneering Black trade unionist, a cooperative organizer, and a caulker. Myers was born free in Baltimore, though Maryland was a slave state. Since the state of Maryland did not offer public education for Black youth, Myers had to acquire his early education from […]
learn more*The birth of Hannibal C. Carter is celebrated on this date in 1835. He was a Black soldier, abolitionist, and politician. Carter was born in New Albany, Indiana, then moved to Toronto, Canada, for his early childhood. He and his brother were sons of George Washington Carter. Although the exact date is unclear, sometime […]
learn more*Lewis Sheridan Leary was born on this date in 1835. He was a Black harness maker and abolitionist. He was a free-born Black from Fayetteville, North Carolina. His paternal grandparents were an Irishman, Jeremiah O’Leary, and his wife of African, European, and Native American descent. His great-grandfather, Aaron Revels, was a cousin to Hiram Rhodes […]
learn more*The opening of the Nathan Thomas House is celebrated on this date in 1835. This was the location of one of Michigan’s most active Underground Railroad stations. Dr. Nathan M. and Pamela Brown Thomas created the refuge. Built-in 1835, he constructed a building that served as both an office and residence. Five years later, he […]
learn more*Mary Patterson Leary Langston’s birth is celebrated on this date in 1835. She was a Black educator and abolitionist. Born Mary Sampson Patterson in North Carolina, she was the daughter of a formerly enslaved man who highly valued education; for this reason, he brought his family to Oberlin, Ohio, to secure a college education […]
learn more*The publication of The Slave’s Friend is celebrated on this date in 1836. This was an anti-slavery magazine for children produced by the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS). The American Anti-Slavery Society was established in 1833 by Arthur Tappan and others. It was one of the leading abolitionist organizations in the United States during the first half of the 19th […]
learn more*The birth of Shields Green is celebrated on this date c 1836. He was a Black escaped slave and abolitionist. Green referred to himself as “‘Emperor”‘ and was from Charleston, South Carolina. After his escape, he lived in Frederick Douglass’s house in Rochester, New York. It was there that Douglass introduced him to John Brown. […]
learn more*On this date 1837, the Detroit Anti-Slavery Society was formed. Before the American Civil War, activists in northern cities formed anti-slavery organizations to promote the abolitionist cause. Detroit’s Anti-Slavery Society was founded the same year Michigan became a state. The new state constitution included a ban on slavery. Abolitionists organized to fight the institution of […]
learn more*Helen Appo Cook was born on this date in 1837. She was a wealthy, prominent Black community activist in the women’s club movement. Helen Appo was born to William Appo, a prominent musician, and Elizabeth Brady Appo, who owned a millinery business in New York. Because of William Appo’s music career, the family lived in […]
learn more*Charlotte Grimke was born on this date in 1837. She was a Black abolitionist and poet.
learn more*The birth of Jacob C. White Jr. is celebrated on August 28th 1837. He was a Black educator, intellectual, and abolitionist. Jacob Clement White Jr. was the son of Jacob White Sr. and Elizabeth White. He was raised at 100 Old York Road in Philadelphia’s predominantly white Jenkintown neighborhoods. His father was a barber and physician who […]
learn more*Newton Knight ion was born on this date in 1837. He was a white-American abolitionist, farmer, unionist, and Confederate soldier. Knight was born near the Leaf River in Jones County, Mississippi, a region dominated by virgin longleaf pines, and wolves and panthers roamed the land. Knight married Serena Turner in 1858, and they moved to […]
learn more*This date in 1838 celebrates the opening of the Milton House. It was a stop (station) on the Underground Railroad, a 19th-century network of people and places that aided the freedom of escaped enslaved people in America. Behind the house is the Goodrich Cabin, built in 1837 and brought to the site in 1839; it was […]
learn more*The birth of Helen Pitts Douglass is celebrated on August 16, 1838. She was a white-American teacher, and suffragist, known for being the second wife of Frederick Douglass. Helen Pitts was born in Honeoye, New York; her parents were activists in the abolitionist and suffragist movements. She was also a descendant of John Alden and Priscilla Alden, who […]
learn more
