Essex County - Newark - "Agitate! The Legacy of Frederick Douglass and Abolition in Newark"

Wednesday, April 17 – Essex County     At 2:30 pm: "Agitate! The Legacy of Frederick Douglass and Abolition in Newark," for the renaming of the Rutgers Alumni Field to the Frederick Douglass Field located at Warren Street and University Avenue. This event is open to the public, but we are asked to RSVP using this link: http://bit.ly/FDAgitate    170 years ago, famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass visited the African American community in Newark to fundraise for The North Star newspaper and to rally action around the abolition of slavery. He gave a speech at the Plane Street Colored Church, located at the site which is now Rutgers-Newark’s Frederick Douglass Field. Join the Rutgers-Newark community and descendants of Douglass and other prominent 19th century African Americans in commemorating Newark's historic abolitionist community in words and music to officially dedicate the field in Douglass' name.     When Douglass visited Newark in 1849, the city embodied the sharp, violent edges of the national conflict around the freedom of African-American lives, bodies, and minds in the nineteenth century. Newark’s economic and ideological allegiances to the South, the belief that free Blacks should go to Africa, and the right to vote were debated in Newark by Blacks, multiracial, and white people for over 20 years.     Newark’s King, Thompson, Ray, and O’ Fake families and noted Black activists like Reverend Samuel Cornish and Reverend Elymas Payson Rogers led a decades-long struggle for abolition and suffrage by creating schools for youth and adults, forming activist and community help groups, working with national leaders, buying land, and building churches. The church at this site, Plane Street Colored Church, was adjacent to an Underground Railroad stop and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion church, which was also known as the “Freedom Church.” They welcomed Douglass to speak about his newspaper and national activism, as a part of his tour of Black churches in the northeast corridor. https://www.newark.rutgers.edu/events/agitate-legacy-frederick-douglass-and-abolition-newark