Milestones in Independence & Freedom

Nathan and Mary “Polly” Johnson were free African American abolitionists living in New Bedford. They opened their home to escaped slaves and helped them find work in the city. Take a tour of their house in person or virtually through the New Bedford Historical Society’s website.

Anna Murray Douglass was a free woman when she met Frederick Douglass in the 1830s. She helped him escape slavery, and they married in 1838 and ended up in New Bedford two days later on September 17, 1838.

Captain Paul Cuffe, African and Native American, fought for the rights of Black and Indigenous people locally and abroad. At the age of 21, Paul and his brother John refused to pay taxes because free Black people did not have the right to vote in Massachusetts. They petitioned to end this taxation without representation to the council of Bristol County and were denied. However, this act contributed to the state legislature's decision to grant voting rights to all free males in 1783.

Dr. Jibreel Khazan, born Ezell Blair Jr., has been a resident, mentor, and activist in New Bedford since he arrived in 1965. On February 1, 1960, along with 3 other Black students, Khazan sat down at the counter of the segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. The Greensboro sit-ins were instrumental actions in the Civil Rights Movement and the establishment of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

Abolition Row is a one-square-mile neighborhood that was once home to New Bedford’s Black and white abolitionists, including formerly enslaved people like Lewis Temple and Frederick Douglass. The Abolition Row Historic District includes 19 historic houses, the Quaker Meeting House and second Meeting House, and Abolition Row Park featuring a statue of Frederick Douglass by sculptor Richard Blake.

Harriet Jacobs is the only African American woman known to have documented her enslavement in writing. For most of the twentieth century, her autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself, was thought to be a novel by a white writer. In 1987, an annotated edition of her book was published, establishing her as the author of the most comprehensive antebellum autobiography of an African American woman. Escaping enslavement, she was sheltered by Cornelia Grinnell Willis at her New Bedford home, where she became active with a group of anti-slavery feminists and was encouraged to write her story.

New Bedford’s Ellen Kempton dedicated her life to educating and assisting formerly enslaved individuals in South Carolina with support from New Bedford’s Freedman’s Aid Society.