Juneteenth Lecture: Portland’s Historic Black Community + the Underground Railroad
DATE: Friday 6/19/26 TIME: 3:00pm - 4:00pm
Historian Seth Goldstein offers tours of the Portland Freedom Trail and has translated some of his tour content for this presentation. Using artwork from the PMA collection Seth will provide an examination of Portland’s historic Black community. Community members purchased their homes in the Munjoy Hill section of the city and built a house of worship; the Abyssinian Meeting House. Many of these individuals found work as mariners or in shoreside jobs related to the maritime trades. Audience members will learn how Portland’s 19th Century Black community helped self-emancipators from the American South disguise themselves and make their way to Canada. These efforts became increasingly important following the passage of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act.