This article by Steve Pfarrer was published in the Daily Hampshire Gazette on 7/31/2020.
In the 1840s, a unique community grew up in a rural, mostly unsettled part of Northampton: a mix of white and African American families and residents whose numbers included not just committed abolitionists but people dedicated to genuine equality for all races and sexes.
What later became known as Florence was home then to the Northampton Association of Education and Industry (NAEI), a communal organization founded on principles of profit sharing, equality and non-sectarianism. The area also became a stop on the Underground Railroad and a home both to free Blacks and formerly enslaved people.
Sojourner Truth and David Ruggles, two of the most noted African American abolitionists, called Florence home for a time as well, and a regular visitor was Frederick Douglass, destined to become the most noted Black statesman of the 19th century. And by 1850, according to the Federal Census, 60 African Americans lived in Florence (and 150 in all of Northampton).
Now that history will get a fresh look through an interactive, online curriculum that’s been developed at the David Ruggles Center for History and Education (DRC) in Florence. The all-volunteer staff at the Ruggles Center, which examines several aspects of life in Florence, Northampton and the Connecticut River Valley from that era, sees an opportunity to give students a means for linking local history to the larger story of America — and to current events.
“This is social history, and it’s also very relevant to what’s happening in the country right now,” said Tom Goldscheider, an independent historian and a member of the DRC General Committee. In a nod to the protests that have erupted nationwide this summer following the killing of African Americans by police, Goldscheider said, “We want to show students how people right in our backyard worked for change, to create a more equitable society.”
