This morning.
Eustace Street, Temple Bar, Dublin.
Historian Cecelia Hartsell (above left) and Lord Mayor Alison Gilliland at the unveiling of a plaque commemorating American anti-slavery leader Frederick Douglass.
Dublin City Council mounted the plaque to honor Douglass’s 1845 visit to Eustace Street.
On leaving Dublin, he said:
“I can truly say, I have spent some of the happiest moments of my life since landing in this country. I seem to have undergone a transformation. I live a new life. The warm and generous co-operation extended to me by the friends of my despised race—the prompt and liberal manner with which the press has rendered me its aid—the glorious enthusiasm with which thousands have flocked to hear the cruel wrongs of my down-trodden and long-enslaved fellow-countrymen portrayed…
“…The deep sympathy for the slave, and the strong abhorrence of the slaveholder, everywhere evinced—the cordiality with which members and ministers of various religious bodies, and of various shades of religious opinion, have embraced me, and lent me their aid—the kind hospitality constantly proffered to me by persons of the highest rank in society—the spirit of freedom that seems to animate all with whom I come in contact.
“…And the entire absence of everything that looked like prejudice against me, on account of the color of my skin—contrasted so strongly with my long and bitter experience in the United States, that I look with wonder and amazement on the transition.”
In fairness.
