Early in the nineteenth century wealthy Bostonians developed one of America’s most glittering neighborhoods on Beacon Hill.
On the other side of the hill – the North Slope – William Cooper Nell grew up in a predominantly black neighborhood. Exploring the Massachusetts State House as a boy he was impressed by the historic atmophere that seemed to celebrate the ideals of democracy. Later in life Nell would deliver many petitions to the State House seeking equal rights for black citizens.
Downtown, on Washington Street, abolitionist attorney Ellis Gray Loring took a thirteen year old black boy from Salem as a servant. Decades later Robert Morris became one of two black attorneys in America who had passed the bar.
Morris also signed petitions, as did Lewis and Harriet Hayden. Their Beacon Hill boarding house became a “temple of refuge” for runaway slaves like themselves.
Today these petitions, and more, are preserved at the Massachusetts Archives. Dating to the colonial period, they provide a fascinating window into the past and a link to our own times, identifying issues that became central to the modern civil rights movement.
The petitions highlight stunning progress and stubborn injustices that remain with us today