FORT WAYNE, Ind. (ADAMS) – In celebration of Juneteenth, the ACPL Rolland Center for Lincoln Research is inviting the community to experience a new exhibit featuring Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington.
Douglass and Washington are considered instrumental leaders in efforts to reform the treatment of Black Americans in the United States during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
ACPL representatives released the following:
The exhibit features Douglass artifacts including photographs and autographs. Another feature is a speech in memory of John Brown, a well-known abolitionist. Some items in this exhibit have not been part of an exhibit and presented for display in decades.
Washington’s items include his photograph, letters from his time as President of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute for the Training of Colored Young Men and Women (now Tuskegee University), and speeches discussing Abraham Lincoln’s legacy.
The exhibit coincides with Juneteenth, also called Emancipation Day, which commemorates June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers marched into Texas and freed the remaining enslaved people in Confederate states. It is a day to honor President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863 and the work of Black leaders like Douglass and Washington in the fight for justice.
The exhibit is open to the public and available to view the entire month of June. The library will be conducting additional programming in celebration of Juneteenth including opportunities to win prizes like Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln buttons.
More information here
