Cambridge Historical Commission | Projects & Services | Cambridge Discovery Days

Cambridge Discovery Days 2011
In Word & Deed: Conflict in Cambridge
Saturday, August 6th, & Saturday, August 13th, 2011

Download Tour Schedule & Descriptions Here:
Multi-page with Full Descriptions          Short Version - 2pp Flyer

     The year 2011 is the 150th anniversary of the start of the American Civil War, and we will offer war-themed tours and events, including explorations of Cambridge abolitionists, poets, scholars, and citizen volunteers. But conflict can also refer to arguments and disagreements about religion, race, sex, and politics; the impact on early Cambridge of the English Civil War; stories of the Revolutionary War; and town-gown disputes. Events include walking tours, slide shows, talks, and first-person performances.
     A tour/event flyer is posted as a pdf file and can be downloaded, printed flyers will also be available. Flyers give the title, guide, starting place or program location, and the length of each event. To participate, simply go to the listed location – then enjoy!
     For more information call the Commission at 617 349 4683.

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     I cannot look at the Constitution or laws of America as a protection to me; in fact, I have no Constitution, and no country. I cannot . . . say "I am bound to stand up in favor of America." I would to God that I could; but how can I! America has disfranchised me, driven me off, and declared that I am not a citizen, and never shall be, upon the soil of the United States. . . . Can I have anything to say in favor of a country that makes me a chattel, that renders me a saleable commodity, that converts me into a piece of property? . . . . And yet I love America as much as [the previous speaker] does. I admire her enterprising and industrious people; but I hate her hideous institution. . . .
     I believe that the same God who made the slaveholder made the slave and that the one is just as free as the other.

Speech by William Wells Brown, delivered at the Concert Rooms
Store Street, London, England, 27 September 1849

Brown (ca. 1814-1884), an escaped slave from Kentucky, was an abolitionist, physician, and author. A powerful orator, he gave many speeches on behalf of black education and human rights and delivered more than a thousand antislavery lectures in Great Britain between 1849 and 1854. From 1860 to 1874 Brown and his wife, Elizabeth, lived at 19 Webster Avenue (now 1 Lilac Court). His account of his life in slavery was published in 1847; Clotel, or the President’s Daughter: A Narrative of Slave Life in the United States, appeared in 1853 and was the first novel by an African American. He was a prolific writer, producing more than a dozen books, as well as pamphlets and plays.

Historic Cambridge Collaborative