The Missing Pieces Project aims to shed new light on the struggle by charting the locations on the lecture tours of 19th-century activists. In church halls, factories and theatres across Britain, Christians, workers, radicals and liberals came to hear African American abolitionists talk and show solidarity with the cause.
Douglass, a writer, reformer, orator and a seminal figure in American civil rights who escaped enslavement, travelled to Britain and Ireland three times. Among the buildings Douglass visited was the music hall at Nelson Street, Newcastle, which, testifying to Tyneside's radical past, was also visited by the activists William Wells Brown, William Craft, Henry Highland Garnet and Moses Roper.
Sarah Parker Remond, the free-born feminist who refused to conceal the sexual violence of slavery, played a leading role in securing support in Manchester for a boycott of Confederate cotton, telling an audience that ignoring slavery meant perpetuating the cycle of violence.
The story of how black Americans came to Britain to fight slavery has still not been fully recognised. Now, buildings in 189 cities, towns and villages have been added to Historic England's Missing Pieces Project, which uncovers overlooked stories behind historic sites with an interactive online map.
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