Members of the Medina community will gather Friday, April 24, to place a state historic marker at the site where abolitionist Frederick Douglass made a speech on April 3, 1849.
The two-sided marker will also commemorate a second speech Douglass made in Medina celebrating emancipation on August 3, 1869.
The initiative to place the marker was conceived and coordinated by the Orleans Renaissance Group, Inc. (ORG), a Medina-based arts and preservation organization.
Chris Busch, ORG president, says that aside from Abraham Lincoln, “… the next most significant and important figure in the fight for justice, freedom and emancipation is Frederick Douglass.”
Dr. David Anderson, a nationally recognized Frederick Douglass impersonator, will deliver a few words in the persona of Douglass during the April 24 event.
Douglass was a resident of Rochester for 25 years, where he was editor of The North Star newspaper.
According to a history written by former Medina Mayor Adam Tabelski, Douglass spoke in hundreds of communities throughout the course of his long public career, but the circumstances of the August 3, 1869, speech are particularly worth noting.
The venue of the 1869 speech is not known, but it was widely publicized around New York State and attracted hundreds of African-Americans. Entitled “We Are Not Yet Quite Free,” the speech appears in many publications and scholarly works.
“Douglass talked passionately about the hardships encountered by his son, Lewis, who couldn’t find a job in Rochester, even though that city was known for being at the forefront of the civil rights movement in the nineteenth century,” Tabelski wrote.
Lewis was a Civil War veteran who served with the 54th Massachusetts regiment – the unit featured in the film, “Glory.” “Day after day, week after week, and month after month he sought for work, found none and came home sad and dejected,” Douglass said of his son in the speech. He ended his remarks that day by exhorting those in attendance to support the 15th Amendment to the US Constitution, which states, the right to vote, “Shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” It was ratified on February 3, 1870, Tabelski wrote.
“Medina and Orleans County favored abolition early on and Douglass was a frequent visitor to the area,” Chris Busch of ORG adds. “It’s right and proper that we should erect this marker to remind us of his presence here and of our common heritage in the fight for freedom.”
A group of Medina residents including the Medina Sandstone Society contributed to the initiative. The marker will be placed on Main Street in the village’s historic district, at the site of 1849 Douglass speech – the old Methodist-Episcopal Church. The church was destroyed by fire; the Fuller Block now stands on the spot.
