Boston’s Old State House is a landmark that has anchored some of the state’s most significant moments — including the first time the Declaration of Independence was read aloud.
But its connection to slavery is what made it the first stop on the newly created walking tour: “Abolition Acre: A Black Freedom Trail in Boston.”
“The folks who signed that document, the majority, were enslavers, even though what the Declaration of Independence actually says is about equality and freedom, liberty for all,” said Peter Snoad with the nonprofit Beacon Hill Scholars that launched the program. “So that felt like the place to start.”
The 10-stop, self-guided tour launched in October explores Boston’s role in spurring the American abolitionist movement. As stories of diverse history are being erased, Snoad says a tour of Boston’s anti-slavery past offers a much-needed examination of that important history.
“We are in a moment now where our democracy and our freedoms are at risk. And we should remember what they did and be inspired by them, and I think many of us are,” he said.
The walk covers a six-block area labeled “Abolition Acre” by historian Horace Seldon, a historian, founder of Beacon Hill Scholars and a former guide with the Black Heritage Trail. That small area, in the heart of downtown Boston, was the center of many anti-slavery efforts in the city.
Christle Rawlins-Jackson, president of Beacon Hill Scholars, said the point of the tour is to give accurate and more complete histories of sites that continue to bring millions of visitors every year — especially as the federal government works to whitewash some of the country’s darker past.
Many of the tours throughout Boston focus on the city’s revolutionary history. But having a tour dedicated completely to the fight for freedom is paramount as visitors learn more about Boston and American history.
“It’s sort of symbolic that there’s also another perspective to this history that isn’t being available or readily told when they’re giving them the history of Boston,” Rawlins-Jackson said.
Some sites on the new tour are more recognizable. At Park Street Church, Black abolitionists fought to desegregate the church. At the Massachusetts State House, the country’s first law banning school segregation was passed in 1855.
But others — including the headquarters of organizations like The Liberator, the leading abolitionist newspaper of the time, and the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society — highlight some of the untold pieces of Boston’s abolitionist history.
The tour adds to a growing number of self-guided historic opportunities in the city. The Freedom Trail highlights the American Revolution; the Black Heritage Trail focuses on the fight for equal rights.
But Snoad says a deeper dive into the city’s abolitionist history is an important addition to the group.
“This is the story of the early abolitionist movement and it happened right here in Boston,’’ he said. “It’s a movement that, had it not happened, who knows whether slavery would still be here today?”
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The self-guided tour is available online. There’s a 47-minute audio narration that offers listeners an immersive experience into history with narration from Snoad and Rawlins-Jackson and dramatized reading from historical figures, along with a trail map and — for those who prefer to read along — written descriptions of each stop along the tour.
The audio tour guide highlights, for instance, the Old Courthouse and Prison, which played a significant role in the fight for freedom. While the original courthouse on that land is no longer there, the guide says it once was a site of “abolitionist defiance” of federal slavery laws.
Anthony Burns, an enslaved man from Virginia, escaped to Massachusetts but was eventually arrested by slave catchers and put on trial at the courthouse.
Local abolitionists protested and President Franklin Pierce, a supporter of slavery, sent U.S. troops to Boston to escort Burns back to slavery. The case prompted outrage in Boston and became a rallying cry for the abolitionist movement.
“It sounds very familiar, considering what’s happening right now,” Snoad said, referencing widespread detentions by U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and National Guard deployments to cities across the country.
Egypt Lloyd, co-founder of the Cambridge-based organization the Slave Legacy History Coalition, praised the new tour for helping to remind people about what happened along the streets of Boston.
“Our history, when it comes to enslavement, it’s very, very important that we do not forget about it,” she said. “If we ignore our freedom and the things we’ve fought to keep our freedom, we definitely will lose it.”
