Black History
The stories of African-Americans’ experiences in New England, as told by learning centers and landmarks across the region, are complex and compelling. There are tragic stories, but tales of triumph and remarkable heroism as well. The famed Amistad rebellion and trial, for example, is so gripping that it inspired a major motion picture. New exhibitions and educational initiatives continually bring forward narratives too long left untold, speaking to us about universal themes—family, community, culture—and about Black New Englanders’ past and present contributions in all arenas. As you explore the New England states, seek out these places where Black history is illuminated and celebrated in ways that will enrich your understanding, deepen your empathy, and inspire you to learn more.
NEW HAMPSHIRE
In the coastal city of Portsmouth, which was home to a third of the state’s enslaved Africans in the years leading up to the American Revolution, Black history was literally buried for almost two centuries. An early-1700s cemetery holding the remains of nearly 200 free and enslaved people was paved over and built upon as the city grew. After it was rediscovered in 2003—and 21st-century DNA testing confirmed it to be the only African burying ground in New England from that early era—a plan took shape to forever honor these unknown souls. When you visit the African Burying Ground Memorial Park, you’ll see the work of acclaimed African-American sculptor Jerome Meadows, who created life-sized male and female figures, reaching toward each other from opposite sides of a slab. It’s an emotional creation symbolizing both the separation and the resilience of the Africans who arrived in this port city as captives.
The memorial park, which also features inscribed words taken from a 1779 petition for freedom presented to the New Hampshire Legislature by 20 enslaved Africans, can be your starting point for a self-guided tour of 23 additional sites along the Portsmouth Black Heritage Trail. Or book a spot on one of the guided tours offered in Portsmouth and beyond by the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire. This organization spearheads many initiatives, including a lecture series and an annual celebration of Juneteenth, the day commemorating the end of slavery in the United States.
VERMONT
Before slavery was abolished, New England was the site of many stops on the Underground Railroad. These places of refuge along secret routes were used by enslaved African-Americans journeying from the South toward the promise of freedom in the northern states and in Canada. Rokeby Museum in Ferrisburgh is New England’s best place to learn about the Underground Railroad. At this 90-acre (36ha) farm, which was home to four generations of a Quaker family from 1793 until 1961, you’ll be introduced via multimedia presentations to Simon and Jesse: two “passengers” on the Underground Railroad who were provided safe shelter and employment here. Tour the farm complex, and you’ll learn even more about how fugitives from slavery became part of their new communities.
Another stop on the 13-site Vermont African American Heritage Trail is the Old Stone House Museum, which tells the story of the man who built it, Alexander Lucius Twilight, who was the first African-American to have graduated from college in the U.S. and the first to serve as a state legislator. Other highlights of the trail include Clemmons Family Farm in Charlotte, which is open for scheduled events from May through October. The farm is one of only 0.4% of U.S. farms that are Black-owned, and its multifaceted mission includes creating opportunities for Vermont’s Black artists.
MASSACHUSETTS
In Boston, you can explore the nation’s largest concentration of historic sites that reveal aspects of free Blacks’ life experiences before the Civil War. Whether you walk the 1.6-mile (2.6km) Black Heritage Trail on your own or join a free, 90-minute tour offered seasonally by the National Park Service, there are 10 landmarks to discover. Be sure to pause and reflect on the determination portrayed in New Hampshire sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ stirring 54th Regiment Memorial, which honors one of the first groups of African-American volunteers to fight for the Union in the Civil War. Two of the most significant buildings on the trail are key assets of the Museum of African American History, which is New England’s largest attraction devoted to displaying artifacts and to telling stories of the Black experience in America from Colonial times to the present. A museum visit begins at the Abiel Smith School, built in 1835 as the country’s first public school solely for African-American children. Next door, the 1806 African Meeting House is the oldest surviving Black church in the U.S.
The Museum of African American History operates a second location on Nantucket, which has its own Black Heritage Trail. Nantucket’s c. 1825 African Meeting House, the only surviving 19th-century building constructed by and for African Americans on this island, is a powerful reminder of the community of free Blacks who owned houses, started businesses, and fought for equal access to education for their children.
For Underground Railroad travelers and Cape Verdean immigrants, the whaling city of New Bedford promised economic opportunities. At the New Bedford Whaling Museum, an exhibit dedicated to Captain Paul Cuffe, believed to be the wealthiest African-American in the early 19th century, showcases the role of Black mariners in New England’s seafaring history. Follow the New Bedford Historical Society’s Black History Trail, and be on the lookout for the large murals around the city that depict important figures like Frederick Douglass, who spent several years here between his time as a slave and his ascendance as an abolitionist activist.
CONNECTICUT
Built at Connecticut’s Mystic Seaport in 2000 and put on exhibit there for visitors to board and explore, the replica ship Amistad brings to life the story made famous by director Steven Spielberg’s movie of the same name. Based on the true events of 1839, when captives from Africa took control of the Spanish slave ship La Amistad only to face imprisonment and a court battle for their lives and freedom, the film was nominated for four Academy Awards and sparked interest in the historic events that unfolded before and after the ship was recaptured and towed to New London.
Other sites on the Connecticut Freedom Trail—of which there more than 130 in all—may not have the same cinematic pedigree but are still of considerable significance. At the Prudence Crandall Museum in Canterbury, you’ll learn about Connecticut’s state heroine, who founded New England’s first school for African-American girls. Similarly, Hartford’s Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, where you can tour the home of the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, reminds us of the leading role that women have played in advocating for emancipation, opportunity, and equality. West of Hartford, in the town of Simsbury, the new MLK in CT Memorial is a place to reflect upon the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who spent a formative chapter in his life working on a tobacco farm here.
MAINE
Walking the 13-stop Portland Freedom Trail on a self-guided tour will immerse you in the efforts of those who sheltered African-American slaves escaping along the Underground Railroad and argued passionately for abolition. You’ll see the Friends Meeting House, where William Lloyd Garrison gave an 1832 speech calling for “immediate emancipation without compensation [to slave owners]”—nearly three decades before America’s Civil War. Even more significantly, you’ll encounter landmarks that are testaments to Black Mainers’ early-19th-century efforts to establish their own cultural identity in this port city. Currently undergoing restoration, the Abyssinian Meeting House, built by Black artisans in 1828, is the third-oldest intact African-American church in the country. It served not only as a place of worship but also as a community center and major hub for the Underground Railroad.
There is another side to African Americans’ experience in Maine, however, that new research and interpretation is bringing to light. It is told most hauntingly on the “ghost island” of Malaga. Now uninhabited, Malaga was once populated by a mixed-race fishing community that was evicted by the state in 1912 to make way for a resort that never materialized. Book a guided kayak tour to the island, and you’ll see the numbered posts that now stand in place of the community’s former homes. Maine’s state legislature issued a resolution nearly 100 years later expressing “profound regret” for its actions.
RHODE ISLAND
Based in Providence, the nonprofit Stages of Freedom organization has racial equity at the core of its mission and programming, and in an effort to bring the state’s Black history to light, it has developed a comprehensive roadside guide to Rhode Island’s African-American sites. Available online, On the Road to Freedom is your window into centuries of Black history in the state, with insightful notes for practically anywhere in Rhode Island you plan to roam. Consult the guide, and you won’t miss sites like America’s largest Colonial-era African cemetery, God’s Little Acre in Newport.
For a more concentrated experience, you can hit the streets of Providence on the Early Black History Self-Guided Walking Tour, which debuted in 2020. Created by the Center for Reconciliation Rhode Island, this roughly 1.6-mile (2.6km) journey traverses the Downtown and East Side neighborhoods, exploring 14 stops along the way. In addition to leading visitors to such sites as the North Burial Ground and the home of Richard Cozzens, a Black veteran of the Revolutionary War, the map itself also includes a gallery of rarely exhibited historic artifacts from the 19th-century neighborhood of Snowtown and introduces readers to key Black figures in the city’s history.
