Welcome! Abolition Acre honors and celebrates the abolitionist movement in Boston, Massachusetts with a focus on the pivotal and largely unrecognized leadership role of African Americans in the struggle to end chattel slavery in the United States.
Abolition Acre refers to a compact area of downtown Boston around City Hall Plaza where leading abolitionists lived and worked during the early decades of the 19th century.
Conceived and developed by Beacon Hill Scholars, a non-profit volunteer group of history enthusiasts, Abolition Acre offers a self-guided walking tour of the area.
Abolition Acre aims to:
- Increase public awareness of the rich history of Black Boston, and especially the vibrant and resilient free Black community located on the north slope of Beacon Hill, which was home to many activists and the hub of campaigns for abolition, civil rights, and racial equality;
- Pay long overdue tribute to some of our city’s unsung racial justice heroes;
- Generate interest in overlapping networks of freedom trails and other sites that tell the story of abolitionism and slavery elsewhere in Massachusetts.