Douglass Day 2024

Join us in celebrating Black history, research and archives

Help us celebrate Douglass' birthday, also known as Douglass Day, an annual nation-wide 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 thinker!

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. We will be transcribing Fredrick Douglass' correspondence, held by the Library of Congress. Douglass was a major an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman.

Transcribing will be done on https://crowd.loc.gov/, a citizen science platform led by the the Library of Congress. Douglass Day invites people from all backgrounds to join in this effort to make Douglass’s correspondence more widely accessible and searchable. 

Who is Frederick Douglass? After escaping from slavery from 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).

Registration is not required - just show up (it's a party!) We encourage that you bring a device if you have one you can comfortably look at an image and type with, but we will have some computers available if needed.

The University Libraries are proud to offer this event in collaboration with the African-American Museum of Southern Arizona.