[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 112 (Tuesday, June 27, 2023)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E617]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       RECOGNIZING THE ABOLITION ROW PARK AND HISTORICAL DISTRICT

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                        HON. WILLIAM R. KEATING

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, June 27, 2023

  Mr. KEATING. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in celebration of the ribbon 
cutting ceremony for the new Abolition Row Park and Historical District 
in New Bedford, Massachusetts.
  The park will sit across from three buildings on the National 
Register of Historic Places--the Nathan and Mary Johnson properties and 
the Friends Meeting House. Each of these buildings, and the people who 
lived and met in them, played a significant role in New Bedford's 
abolition movement. The park was developed through a partnership 
between the New Bedford Historical Society, the City of New Bedford, 
and local organizations to reclaim and preserve the 19th century 
neighborhood that was once home to key members of the Underground 
Railroad and the city's antislavery movement, including Frederick 
Douglass.
  Nathan and Mary Johnson's house was the first home that Frederick 
Douglass lived in after escaping slavery in Maryland in 1838. It was at 
this house that Douglass changed his name from Frederick Augustus 
Washington Bailey to Frederick Douglass, and it was in New Bedford 
where Frederick Douglass and his wife, Anna, started their family and 
Douglass earned his first wages as a freeman.
  On June 23, 2023, a ribbon cutting ceremony will be held to celebrate 
the opening of Abolition Row Park and to commemorate the new local 
Abolition Row Historical District, which includes four blocks of 
historic buildings, many of which were the homes of critical anti-
slavery advocates leading up to the civil war. The Abolition Row Park 
will also include a seven-foot statue of Frederick Douglass, who spent 
his first years of freedom right across the street from that very park.
  Mr. Speaker, I am proud to celebrate the opening of the Abolition Row 
Park and Historical District, and I ask that my colleagues join me in 
acknowledging and honoring the crucial role that the City of New 
Bedford played in our country's abolition movement.

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