June 23, 2025 @ 6:00 pm – June 28, 2025 @ 4:00 pm
David Ruggles was born in Lyme, CT in 1810. The Lyme Public Library is hosting a David Ruggles Week to honor their hometown hero and his unwavering crusade for racial justice. Events include four compelling lectures about different aspects of Ruggles’ life. Click on the poster above for details. To register for the Zoom link or to attend in person, email programreg@lymepl.org .
May 4, 2025
@ 12:00 pm
–
October 30, 2025
@ 4:00 pm
The DRC is open Sunday afternoons, 12-4. Come learn about the courageous individuals in 1840s and 1850s Florence who challenged slavery and prejudice, and sought to build a community based on principles of race, gender, class and religious equality. Exhibits tells the stories of famous abolitionist icons who lived in Florence like Sojourner Truth and David Ruggles, and ordinary heroes like Basil Dorsey who escaped slavery and built a new life in freedom here while continuing to engage in antislavery work.
Current exhibits include:
~David Ruggles: At the Vanguard of Liberty
~“The Spirit Calls Me There”: Sojourner Truth in Florence, 1844-1857
~Lydia Maria Child, Abolitionist
~People, Places, and Paper: The Underground Railroad in Northampton and Florence
Visitors are also invited to peruse the DRC’s extensive library or make an appointment for the archive.
Museum tours are also availably by appointment. For inquiries of all types, please email info@davidrugglescenter.org.
January 20, 2025 @ 12:00 pm – 4:00 pm
In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the museum at the David Ruggles Center will be open Monday, January 20, 12-4 PM. Visitors can learn about Black Americans, many formerly enslaved, who lived in Florence and Northampton in the 1840s and 1850s and fought against the institution of slavery and racial injustice. This history highlights not only antislavery icons like Sojourner Truth and David Ruggles, but also the lives of ordinary local heroes like Basil Dorsey and Stephen Rush who had escaped enslavement and continued the quest for equality in Florence. Through these stories, visitors can learn about and reflect upon the Underground Railroad, Frederick Douglass, as well as Florence’s 1840s abolitionist utopian community, William Lloyd Garrison, and the 19th century quest to end slavery and racial injustice in the USA, a century before the 20th Century Civil Rights Movement emerged. Docents will be on hand. Refreshments will be provided. All are welcome!
February 17, 2024
@ 10:00 am
–
11:30 am
Please join us in celebrating the life of Basil Dorsey, a freedom seeker from Maryland who began his escape from enslavement in 1836, ultimately settling in Florence, Massachusetts in 1844. DRC Guides Kim Gerould and Kevin McQuillan will start with a short introduction in the museum, and then walk, looking at sites connected to Dorsey, the Underground Railroad, and the abolitionist and reform movements of the 1840s and 1850s.
The walk is free to the public. Donations to the Center are always welcome and appreciated. RSVP is not required but appreciated.
For more information, or to RSVP, email info@davidrugglescenter.org.
June 19, 2023 @ 10:00 am – 12:00 pm
In honor of Juneteenth, the DRC is proud to present a new slideshow developed and presented by Steve Strimer: “David Ruggles, Organizer: Meeting of the 1844 “Colored Citizens of Northampton,” & the 1850 Meeting to resist the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850.” The presentation will be held at the Ruggles Center and will be followed by a Walking Tour of sites and houses related to Black anti-slavery activists and fugitives from slavery documented in the slideshow. The indoor program is limited to 30 attendees. Masks optional. For more information, please email info@davidrugglescenter.org.
