Voice

Early communities have claimed and used their individual and collective voices to empower themselves and each other.

Courtesy of Boston Public Library, Arts Department
George Washington 1
Courtesy of Boston Public Library, Arts Department
Home of Longfellow, Cambridge, MA 2

1775

Six-year-old Darby Vassall refuses General George Washington’s order to work as a servant in Washington’s Headquarters at the Longfellow House in Cambridge. According to a New England Genealogical Society article published in 1871, Darby described Washington as “no gentleman, he wanted a boy to work without wages.”
Courtesy of Massachusetts Historical Society
Elizabeth Freeman 3

1781

Elizabeth Freeman, an enslaved woman known as Mumbett, and an enslaved man known as Brom, successfully petition for their freedom in a legal case known as "Brom & Bett v. Ashley."
Agency
Courtesy of the Westborough Public Library
1780 Massachusetts Constitution 4

1783

An enslaved man named Quock Walker successfully petitions for his freedom, challenging the constitutionality of slavery in Massachusetts.
Agency
Slavery is legally abolished in Massachusetts when the Supreme Judicial Court, through judicial review, applies the decisions upheld in Brom & Bett v. Ashley and the Quock Walker trial to the 1780 Massachusetts Constitution.
Agency
Courtesy of Boston Public Library
The Liberator Masthead 5

1831

The anti-slavery newspaper "The Liberator" is published by William Lloyd Garrison, a white journalist and abolitionist.
Community Building
Networking Across Differences
Courtesy of Boston Public Library, Anti-Slavery (Collection of Distinction)
Darby Vassall's Obituary from The Liberator 6
Courtesy of Museum of African American History, Boston and Nantucket
William Cooper Nell 7

1861

Darby passes away.

Image Citations

1. Stuart, Gilbert, Fabronius, Dominique C., and L. Prang & Co. "George Washington." Print. (c) 1863. Digital Commonwealth, https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/z890rw40k
2. "Home of Longfellow, Cambridge, Mass." Photograph. [ca. 1850–1920]. Digital Commonwealth, https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/9880w568v
3. Miniature portrait, watercolor on ivory by Susan Anne Livingston Ridley Sedgwick, 1811
4. State of Massachusetts-Bay; Printed by Benjamin Edes & Son - A Constitution or Frame of Government; agreed upon by the Delegates of the People of the State of Massachusetts-Bay
5. Garrison, William Lloyd, and James Brown Yerrinton. "The Liberator." Newspaper. Boston, Mass.: William Lloyd Garrison and Isaac Knapp, November 22, 1861. Digital Commonwealth, https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/mc87rg189
6. Garrison, William Lloyd, and James Brown Yerrinton. "The Liberator." Newspaper. Boston, Mass.: William Lloyd Garrison and Isaac Knapp, November 22, 1861. Digital Commonwealth, https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/mc87rg189
7. Nell, William Cooper "The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution, with sketches of several Distinguished Colored Persons: to Which is Added a Brief Survey of the Condition and Prospects of Colored Americans Frontispiece" Book. 1855.