Portside - August 13 is the 184th anniversary of the meeting that launched Frederick Douglass on his long career as a militant abolitionist and leader of the struggle for the civil and political rights for all, especially African-Americans and women.
Douglass was only 23 years old. Less than three years had passed since he emancipated himself by escaping enslavement in Maryland. Yet here he was on Nantucket Island, eloquently describing his experience as an enslaved person who had taken the dangerous step of taking flight, first to New York City and then to Massachusetts.
On August 13, 1841, Douglass was speaking to a rapt audience of more than a thousand members and supporters of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society at their annual convention.
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