A group of Emory administrators, faculty and community members gathered in the Jones Room of the Woodruff Library on Feb. 14 to join the Colored Conventions Project, a scholarly and community research initiative dedicated to digitizing the history of 19th century Black organizing. Joining 7,000 participants in 110 locations globally, attendees transcribed and honored the works of Mary Ann Shadd Cary in celebration of Frederick Douglass Day.
Douglass was a formerly enslaved man who later became a renowned abolitionist leader. After escaping a plantation in Maryland and achieving freedom, Douglass, who had no accurate knowledge of his birthday, began celebrating his birthday on Valentine’s Day.
Vice Provost for Diversity and Inclusion Carol Henderson kicked off the event by emphasizing the importance of Douglass picking Feb. 14 for his birthday.
“To have someone name themselves and name their birthdate, we want to honor that, in this particular climate where the country is having old conversations at a new moment about whether we should even celebrate and recognize Black History Month,” Henderson said. “I find it very gratifying and very affirming that Emory University creates space for us to do this.”
The Center for Black Digital Research at Pennsylvania State University hosts the Douglass Day event every year to transcribe, create and make Black history resources more accessible, with universities like Emory participating annually. The organization highlighted the work of African American activists Mary Church Terrell and Anna Julia Cooper in 2021 and 2020, respectively.
Curator of African American Collections Clinton Fluker described Cary’s legacy as the first Black, female editor in North America.
“[Cary’s] work, particularly in the 1890s on documenting the South, is paramount to our understanding about how we advocated for our own rights throughout the period,” Fluker said.
The project also includes materials by Delilah Beasley, a journalist and historian who chronicled Black progress in California, and Almena Lomax, a prominent Black journalist who founded the Los Angeles Tribune, Fluker noted.
The hosts then opened a livestream for universities and participants around the world to join., including Emory. During the event, researchers and professors discussed Cary’s legacy.
Born in 1823, Cary moved to Pennsylvania, which was a free state, when she was 10 years old. Her parents helped others escape slavery through the Underground Railroad. Cary later became a teacher and opened a school for students of all races in Canada. She also founded Canada’s first antislavery newspaper, The Provincial Freeman.
After her husband died, Cary joined efforts to recruit Black soldiers to the Union Army during the Civil War and eventually became the first Black woman to gain admission to law school in the United States, where she attended Howard University (D.C.). While teaching full time and raising two children, Cary studied part time and became the second Black woman to earn a law degree. Cary was also the first Black woman to vote in a national election in the United States.
“Through all of that, she kept writing, publishing and advocating for racial and gender equality throughout her life,” Assistant Professor of English at Queen’s University in Canada Kristin Moriah said in the livestream. “She was a force to be reckoned with, and our work here today is a testament to that fact.”
After the livestream, participants had the chance to explore and transcribe Cary’s works and decorate buttons in honor of Douglass Day. With the transcripts, participants had the option to either transcribe handwritten documents to make them more accessible or identify important figures in documents.
The documents come from a variety of collections and libraries, including the Archives of Ontario and the Moorland Spingarn Research Center at Howard, with some becoming digitized in the past few years.
Program Coordinator for the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Jordan Ross, who helped plan the Douglass Day event, said he appreciated the chance to meet new people and honor Douglass’ contributions.
“Especially in this time period where history means so much to us, and means so much to this space, I’m just proud that we can celebrate Douglass, we can celebrate Mary Ann Shadd Cary and others through a digital space,” Ross said.
Former senior business manager of Emory Eye Center Mallard Benton, who has attended previous Douglass Day events, said he appreciated the opportunity to “transcribe something about someone that [he] knew something about, but not a lot.”
“I feel that I’m contributing to keeping her alive and sharing her with other people,” Benton said.
