Recognizing the Abolition Row Park and Historical District

Floor Speech

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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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