Anti-slavery activist to be remembered on Wexford plaque
THE anti-slavery campaigner Frederick Douglass, who visited Wexford in 1845, is to be commemmorated with a plaque erected by the Borough District Council while Wexford Arts Centre is holding a tribute evening on Thursday, November 29, at 8 p.m.
The idea for the plaque has come from Sinn Fein councillor Thomas Forde who proposed that the local authority officially mark the inspirational figure’s historic visit to the town.
Douglas was a 19th century American social reformer, slavery abolitionist, orator, writer and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became a national leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York, gaining attention for his oratory and writings.
‘He was an inspirational man. I wasn’t aware that he visited Wexford town until recently. It was around the general area of the Arts Centre, I believe,’ said Cllr. Forde, adding that an Arts Centre group are organising an anniversary concert, that is hoped will become an annual event.
The motion was seconded by Cllr. Tony Walsh of People Before Profit and supported by the other members.
The Frederick Douglass Tribute at the Arts Centre will celebrate the bicentennial of the Irish civil rights movement and all proceeds will go to Amnesty International.
The Arts Centre recently discovered that Douglass visited and spoke in the Cornmarket centre or the Assembly Rooms as it was known then, on October 7 and 8 in 1845. He travelled the world speaking out about slavery and the need to stand up for human rights.
Douglass forged a relationship with Daniel O’Connell in Ireland. A recent book ‘Frederick Douglass and Ireland: In His Own Words’, by Christine Kinealy, presents two volumes of letters, speeches and newspaper reports about his activities in Ireland.
Records from the time note that ‘on Wednesday 8 October 1845, Douglass appeared before a largely Quaker audience in the bright Georgian meeting room upstairs in the Assembly Rooms in Wexford, for a second night in succession’. The Wexford Independent, a pro- Repeal newspaper published by John Green, a seven time Mayor of the town, carried an advertisement for the talk. The talk started at 8 o’clock and tickets on the door were 4d.
Joseph Poole a would-be poet and lively letter writer sent an account into the papers stating: ‘Mr. Editor - you are without doubt an anti-slavery man, and will have pleasure of the fact that the execrable system of American Slavery has had a most complete exposure in our good town of Wexford, at the hands of one of its fugitive victims and most eloquent and determined opponents, Frederick Douglass, of Lynne, Massachusetts, recently a slave in Maryland, and now threatened in his life and liberty for his courageous denunciation of of its iniquity, and who has been driven thereby from the land of stars and stripes - the land of freedom and equality - the land of religion and civilisation - the United States of America, to seek protection from the pitiless grip of his master in the bosom of the Green island, in the hearts and beneath the sheltering arm of the liberty-loving sons of Old Ireland.’
Poole later noted that Douglass proclaimed aloud in the Assembly Room his manhood and the manhood of his race and its identity with the whole brotherhood of man. ‘I am your brother, said Douglass, and the assent of his hearers was proclaimed in such a universal shout of approbation that the old walls shook to hear three million of our brothers and sisters still languish in bondage of the most hideous description in the Southern State of America.’
One hundred and seventy three years later, Wexford Arts Centre will host an evening of music and words in Douglass’s honour with an admission charge of €5 instead of 4d.
The audience will hear fascinating stories about Frederick Douglass told by Deirdre McGarry and Ed Barker, with music performances by Michael Murphy, Rachel Grace, James and Alice McIntyre and further speeches and poems with Deirdre Wadding, Tony Bergin, Victor Tierney and surprise guests. To book visit www.wexfordartscentre.ie or call box office at 053 9123764.