In honor of Black History Month the City Hall foyer is playing host to a traveling exhibit on Frederick Douglass, a well-known abolitionist and one time Lynn resident.
With the help of Lynn Tech film students installing the exhibit, the Brockton Frederick Douglass Bicentennial Committee has lent the traveling exhibit to the city for the month of February. It will travel to the Lynn Tech in March for further viewing.
Helping with the exhibit are Lynn Smith, president of Brockton’s Frederick Douglass Neighborhood Association; Wendy Joseph, co-chair of Lynn’s Frederick Douglass bicentennial and Lynn Tech teacher Noube Rateau.
Douglass came to Lynn in 1841 as a 23-year-old fugitive slave with his wife Anna, their five children. In the years to follow, the family lived on Harrison Court, as well as Baldwin and Newhall streets.
Douglass also did a two-year lecture series in Ireland and England.
“Ireland was significant in expanding his thoughts from just ‘abolitionist’ to the rights of all people,” Joseph said.
He was also Consul General to Haiti, however, resigned in protest of the United States trying to takeover Haiti. He spent a significant part of his life in Rochester, NY.
Local Brockton artists created some of the artwork included in the exhibit. In the exhbit you will learn that Douglass was one of 40 men to travel to Seneca Falls, NY in 1845 and was an enrolled member of the National Women’s Sufferage Association. Frederick Douglass died on February 20, 1895 of a massive heart attack or stroke shortly after returning from a meeting of the National Council of Women in Washington, D.C. He was buried in Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester, NY.
For more information on Douglass in Lynn look for the book “Douglass: The Lynn Years” by Tom Dalton.
Also showing in the Lynn Auditorium, on Feb. 12 will be “Eyes on the Prize” at 7 p.m. Come see both the same night.
The exhibit is open during City Hall hours:
Monday, Wednesday and Thursday 8:30 a.m. until 4 p.m.
Tuesday – 8:30 a.m. until 8 p.m.
Friday – 8:30 a.m. until 12:30 p.m.