It's a party! 

Help us celebrate Frederick Douglass's birthday, also known as Douglass Day, an annual global transcribe-a-thon and a collective action for Black history.

Thousands of participants come together at more than one hundred simultaneous events around the world to transcribe materials of Black scholars and thinkers.

We will transcribe the African American Perspectives Collection held by the Library of Congress. This collection includes speeches, sermons, biographies, narratives, and records from the history of Black political activism–including writing and materials by Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Booker T.  Washington, William Still, Angelina Grimké Weld–and many more.

Transcribing will be done on By The People, a citizen science and crowdsourcing platform hosted by the Library of Congress. Douglass Day invites people from all backgrounds to join in this effort to make Black history more widely accessible and searchable. 

Details

• No experience is necessary. We'll help you get started.
• The party kicks off at 10am promptly. Drop by anytime! 
• If you bring your own device, we encourage that you can comfortably look at an image on-screen, and type with it. We will also have some computers available.
• For a preview of what's involved, visit Transcribe Douglass.

Frederick Douglass, (1818-1895), was an American abolitionist, social reformer, orator, writer, and statesman. Because he was born into bondage and never knew his birth date, Douglass chose to recognize it on February 14. 

After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became the most important leader of the movement for African American Civil Rights in the 19th century. He is the author of the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845), My Bondage and My Freedom (1855), and Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1882, revised 1891).

Our co-sponsor

This event is proudly co-sponsored by the African American Museum of Southern Arizona: "We are movement, not just a museum!"