Peter Snoad, Christle Rawlins-Jackson, and Mikayla Harden
The Making of Abolition Acre! A Black Freedom Trail in Boston
Boston is renowned as the cradle of the American Revolution. But it was also the birthplace of another social and political movement that changed America — the movement to end slavery. Last fall, Beacon Hill Scholars (BHS), an all-volunteer Boston nonprofit, launched Abolition Acre! A Black Freedom Trail in Boston. It’s a self-guided tour of 10 downtown abolitionist sites with audio narration available through the website: beaconhillscholars.org. BHS works to uplift the history of the dynamic Black community that existed on Boston’s Beacon Hill in the 19th century and was home to several prominent leaders of the emerging abolitionist movement. As a session participant, you will learn why and how Abolition Acre! was created; sample the trail experience virtually through an audio-visual presentation; and have the opportunity to discuss the practical challenges of creating a walking trail of historic sites.
Peter Snoad is the volunteer Project Coordinator at Beacon Hill Scholars (BHS). He’s a history buff, former journalist, and award-winning playwright. For 23 years before he retired, Peter directed the grantmaking program of a social justice foundation based in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. Peter is a co-founder of The David Walker Memorial Project, a BHS initiative focused on the influential Black abolitionist David Walker. Walker is a central character in Peter’s stage play, Raising David Walker, that premiered at Hibernian Hall in Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood when he was Visiting Playwright there. Peter is passionate about helping people discover the unvarnished truth about slavery and the genocide against Indigenous peoples in the U.S., the defining role of slavery as the foundation of the national economy, and the extraordinary courage and sacrifice of those who fought to end it.
Christle Rawlins-Jackson is President of Beacon Hill Scholars, an all-volunteer organization working to preserve and uplift the history of the 19th-century Black abolitionists who lived and owned businesses in Boston’s Beacon Hill neighborhood. Christle is a fiber and multimedia artist, poet, photographer, and independent researcher. She currently works at the Community Church of Boston as the Communications and Publications Manager. She has exhibited her story quilts and performed her poetry throughout New England. She is a co-founder and vice president of Sisters In Stitches Joined By The Cloth, a quilt guild dedicated to upholding the tradition of African American quilt-making and educating the general public about the rich history of people of color and fabric. Christle earned a BFA, with a concentration in Design and Art History, at UMass Dartmouth. Her work is greatly influenced and inspired by time spent living in Ghana, West Africa where she worked as the Director of Communication at the African University College of Communications, and by her over 30-year odyssey researching her family’s history in New England and Nova Scotia.
Mikayla Harden, MA, volunteers with Beacon Hill Scholars as its Social Media Coordinator. In her professional capacity, she is Assistant Program Director and Researcher of the Stopping Stones Project at Historic New England. Stopping Stones is a public art initiative that honors enslaved Americans by placing permanent markers where they lived and worked. The program encourages dialogue about the history of slavery, racial injustice, and the legacies that shape New England today. Mikayla holds degrees from the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Delaware and is currently completing her doctorate at the University of Delaware, where her research focuses on the lives of enslaved Black children in 18th-century New York. Before joining Historic New England, she served as a leadership consultant with a Black maternal health organization, where she advanced equity-driven initiatives.
