Frederick Douglass
Neighborhood Association
Brockton, Massachusetts
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To connect with us, click here.
To see the MassHumanities video which highlights our 2019 reading in Brockton click here.
Board Member Willie A. Wilson Jr. opens the program with his commentary and featured readings; the venue of Messiah Baptist Church and all our wonderful readers and volunteers all appear in the video as well. FDNA is grateful to MassHumanities for this program, and their funding. #RFDT2019
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Reading Frederick Douglass Together - June 30, 2019
Join us in the community garden on June 30th, at 4 pm, as we read Douglass' famous speech "What to the Slave is the 4th of July". To honor the diversity of Brockton, we read the speech in the language of our ancestors.
How does that work? Well, visit our Facebook page, find the images of the 45 paragraphs of the speech, choose one paragraph that you would like to translate and read, and then post that information on our Facebook page. We'll mark that paragraph with your name and chosen language, and then on June 30th you'll read that paragaph to honoryour family's legacy and life here in America. The audience will be able to read along in English so they will understand, as well.
And if you would rather just come and read spontaneously in English, that is perfectly fine as well.
To see how it works, you can watch the tape on our local Brockton Community Access channel here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72sm91mfAng&t=564s
We are grateful to MassHumanities for funding this event, and to the Team Brockton Resident Leader Program for their minigrant. Assisting in the Reading are our community parnters Criolas Unidas and the Haitian Artists Assembly of Massachusetts. Our moderator is Willie A. Wilson, Jr. The support of the Brockton Historical Society is also valued.
5th Annual Plant and Seed Swap May 5th
Our 5th Annual Plant and Seed Swap in the community garden, Sunday May 5th, 2019 from 12:30 pm to 3 pm. How does a swap work? You choose some seeds or bare root plants from your garden, bag them up, label them carefully, and then bring them to the specially marked swap area in our community garden. Other gardeners will have their swap items ready to share! If you are new to gardening and do not have a swap item, no worries. Donate a gently used book to our Little Free Library and you can go home with a seedling donated by The Farm at Stonehill, while supplies last.
We'll have a fun afternoon - free arts and crafts for the kids, music, tables staffed by The Brockton Garden Club, Will's Lawns, Good Samaritan Medical Center, our very own Beekeeper, just to name a few. We'll have free giveaways, while supplies last. And since it's Cinco De Mayo, a $1 donation to the garden will buy you a taco lunch, with a Mexican Wedding Cookie for dessert.
Because we are gardeners, we'll hold the event even if there is a gentle rain - but if it's anything that would make our tents blow over, and we'll reschedule. So watch our Facebook page for instant updates.
There is plenty of free parking around the garden in the city employee lots that are empty on weekends. Use 95 Frederick Douglass Avenue Brockton MA 02301 on your GPS to find us.
The Brockton-Lynn Connection
The City of Lynn, Massachusetts, where Frederick Douglass lived from 1841 to 1845, invited the Frederick Douglass Neighborhood Association to install the traveling Bicentennial Exhibit in the Grand Foyer of the Lynn Auditorium, part of City Hall. Noube Rateau, award winning documentary filmmaker, and his Radio and TV Production class from Lynn Vocational Technical High School, assisted in the installation. Wendy Joseph, the chair of the Lynn Douglass Bicentennial Committee, oversaw the project. The exhibit will be on display at city hall through February 2019 in honor of Black History Month.
The exhibit explores the connection of Douglass to our Haitian, Cape Verdean, and Irish American populations, as well as to the women's equality movement and the establishment of the Massachusetts 54th Regiment.
