People, Locations, Episodes

The First World Anti-Slavery Convention is Held

*On this date in 1840, the World Anti-Slavery Convention met for the first time at Exeter Hall in London.   The new society’s mission was “The universal extinction of slavery and the slave trade and the protection of the rights and interests of the enfranchised population in the British possessions and of all persons captured […]

Cudjo Lewis, Slave Laborer, and Historian born

*The birth of Cudjo Lewis, c 1840, is celebrated on this date. He was a Black Laborer, Historian, and one of the last known African survivors of the Middle Passage, the Atlantic slave trade between Africa and the United States. He was born Oluale Kossola in Benin to Oluale Kossola and his second wife, Fondlolu. He […]

Frederick Douglass Jr., Abolitionist, and Editor born

*Frederick Douglass Jr. was born on this date in 1842. He was an abolitionist, essayist, newspaper editor, and official recruiter of colored soldiers for the United States Union Army during the American Civil War. He was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and was the second son of Frederick Douglass and his first wife, Anna Murray Douglass. As a youngster […]

Sara Forbes Bonetta, Queen Victoria’s Goddaughter born.

*Sara Forbes Bonetta’s birth is celebrated on this date in c. 1843. She was Queen Victoria’s Black African goddaughter. Originally named Aina (or Ina), she was born in a Yoruba village in West Africa, Nigeria, after its collapse to the Kingdom of Dahomey. In 1848, Oke-Odan was invaded and captured by the army of Dahomey. […]

Abolitionist is Branded as a ‘Slave Stealer’

On this date from 1845, we recall the Branding of a Slave Stealer, Massachusetts’s sea captain, Jonathan Walker.

Jonathan Walker, a white man born in 1790, was arrested in 1844 for trying to carry slaves who were members of his church to freedom in the Bahamas. He was apprehended off the coast of Florida. He was jailed for more than a year and branded with the letters “S.S.” for Slave Stealer.

The Peter Mott House (New Jersey), a story

*The celebration of the Peter Mott House in 1845 is featured on this date. Built before the civil war, the house was residence Mott who was also a free Black abolitionist and preacher; the Peter Mott House is the oldest known house in the city.

Henry Lowry, Lumbee Outlaw, born

*The birth of Henry Lowry is celebrated on this date, c. 1845. He was a Lumbee Native American outlaw. Henry Berry Lowry was born to Allen and Mary (Cumbo) Lowry in the Hopewell Community in Robeson County, North Carolina. His father owned a successful 350-acre mixed-use farm in the county. Henry Lowry was one of 12 multi-racial […]

The North Star Newspaper is Published

*On this date in 1847, The North Star newspaper began publication.  This was a nineteenth-century anti-slavery newspaper published by abolitionist Frederick Douglass. The North Star’s slogan was “Right is of no Sex, Truth is of no Color. God is the Father of us all, and all we are Brethren.”  Douglass was first inspired to publish […]

Maritcha Remond Lyons, Suffragist born

*Maritcha Remond Lyons was born on this date in 1848. She was a Black educator, civic leader, suffragist, and public speaker in New York City and Brooklyn, New York. She taught in public schools in Brooklyn and was the second black woman to serve as an assistant principal in their system.   She was born at 144 Centre Street in New York […]

The Allegheny Institute is Chartered

*On this date in 1849, the Allegheny Institute was chartered. Along with the institute, it included Mission Church, north of Pittsburgh.   Charles Avery funded this school to offer elementary and advanced education to qualified Black students without regard to sex. The racial and coeducational features of the program were controversial, and the school’s connection […]

Virginia Hewlett Douglass, Suffragist born

*Virginia Hewlett Douglass was born on this date in 1849. She was a Black suffragist. Virginia Lewis Molyneaux Hewlett was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She was the daughter of Aaron Molyneaux Hewlett, the first Black instructor at Harvard University, and Virginia Josephine Lewis Molyneaux Hewlett, a physical education instructor. On August 4, 1869, Virginia Hewlett […]

The ‘Voice of the Fugitive’ Newspaper is Published

The founding of the “Voice of the Fugitive” newspaper in 1851 is celebrated on this date.

It was the first Black Newspaper in Canada. Published every other Thursday just across the Canadian border from Detroit, this short-lived paper was the work of Henry C. Bibb. The paper was issued from 1851 to end of 1853. Published in the community of Sandwich (now Windsor, Ont.), The abolitionist newspaper promoted Canada as a destination for runaway slaves and as a vehicle to find other family members.

Sojourner Truth Gives Her ‘Ain’t I A Woman’ Speech

*On this date in 1851, Sojourner Truth gave her famous “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech for the first time. Although it did not originally have a title and was delivered impromptu, it has since inspired the Black feminist community.   After gaining her freedom in 1827, Sojourner Truth became a well-known anti-slavery speaker. Her speech was delivered at […]

Nat Love, Cowboy born

*The birth of Nat Love in 1854 is celebrated on this date. He was an African American Pullman porter, and cowboy.

Born on his master’s plantation in Davidson County in Tennessee, Love was raised out of an old log cabin. His master Robert Love, an extensive planter and the owner of many slaves owned his father and mother. Love’s father was a foreman of the slaves on the plantation, and his mother worked the kitchen at the master’s big house waiting tables, milking the cows, running the loom and weaving clothing for the other slaves.

The ‘Mirror Of The Times’ Newspaper is Published

*The Mirror of the Times newspaper is celebrated on this date in 1857. This was a Black newspaper published in San Francisco, CA. Founded by two Black businessmen, Mifflin W. Gibbs, and James Townsend, the Mirror of the Times was a weekly newspaper that appealed to a small community of African Americans in California. Its first […]