Dave lobbied for a blue plaque to Frederick Douglass and yesterday it was unveiled on the outside of the Baptist Church in North Shields.
Why? Dave’s introduction to the unveiling explains that for you.
“Thanks to everyone for coming along this morning. Another Tuesday 180 years ago Frederick Douglass spoke in this church.
This is the face of the Douglass who came through these doors on that day. Not the iconic image we have of him with the regal hair and beard. The 28 year old Douglass was clean shaven and the hair is free from the salt-in-pepper feature of his later years. However, the strong, chiseled jawline, prominent, high cheekbones, and resolute chin are clearly in attendance.
He spoke in North Shields in three seperate occasions. Each time as a WANTED MAN. His two visits in 1846 were made under a fugitive slave warrant issued for his arrest back in the States. Then in 1860 he spoke at the Albion Assembly Rooms, Norfolk Street one street over. On that occasion he was wanted in connection with the John Brown insurrection.
So why did he come to speak at this church twice in 1846? Well the simple answer is because he had been invited to by The North Shields Anti-Slavery Society. The organisation was founded in October 1836 at the Wesleyan Chapel that stood just accross Saville Street on right hand side. Douglass also knew that he would get a sympathetic hearing to his cause. Shields had refused to look the other way to the practice of slavery. He was one of four former slaves and abolitionists who would visit the town. The other three were Henry Highland Garnett, William Wells Brown & James Watkins.
Lets briefly return to that day 180 years ago.
The newly built church was packed to its 700 capacity. The audience listen as school children listen. They ask themselves can this man really have once laboured under a yoke like a beast of burden? How does someone go from that to this confident articulate orator that stands before them? From ragged cotton apparel to frock coat, velvet vest and silk neck cloth. They wonder at how anyone could think to break this man, but know that beneath that linen shirt are the marks from those who have tried.
He mounts the pulpit and scans the faces of those assembled in the lower floor and upper gallery. He is below two full length clear arch windows. The wash of light calls attention to the man’s height and powerfully built features.
The strong baritone voice fills the space. It’s almost conversational one moment then rises organ-like the next to flow around the tie beams above their heads.
‘Do not expect great things from me on the present occasion,’ he cautions them. This is a reference to his lack of experience as a speaker.
He binds them to his subject as he sets forth the story of the four million held by the chains of the peculiar institution. They can feel his hatred, and it becomes their hatred, here in this place where such thoughts are viewed as contrary to God’s will.
Douglass concludes his lecture with a plea to all church pulpits to declare their opposition to slave-holding.
Two interesting connections that Douglas had to North Shields.
Shields of course is synonymous with the shoals of herring that were caught off here during their summer run down the east coast. The slave child Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was raised by his grandmother Betsey Bailey. She was a skilled fisherwoman who trapped that same fish during its summer run on the Tuckahoe River in Talbot County, Maryland.
.And the second? There was another former slave who was a member of this church and lived just over the road. She was Mary Ann Machem or Blyth by the time Douglass visited here. They were born only 180 miles apart down the eastern coastline of America (Middlesex County, Virginia). Was she in the audience when Douglass spoke here on that day? If so, were they introduced by one of the Spence family who acted as Mary Ann’s sponsors and would have been instrumental in inviting Douglass here to speak. Two Americans who where still legally the property of two other Americans. We can only speculate if the meeting took place and the likely nature of the conversation between the two.
OK time for me to shut up and ask Justine King to carry out the unveiling.”
(Justine King – Education Coordinator for Show Racism the Red Card)
The North Shields Heritology Project 