King’s Chapel in Boston, MA. Photo via iStock/zrfphoto

Student Voices

Why the History of Enslavement on the Freedom Trail Matters

A COM student reflects on her in-class experience partnering with GBH to uncover Boston’s difficult history

My first visit—a fifth-grade field trip—to the Boston Freedom Trail was a familiar scene. Elementary school students in Catholic school uniforms clogged the arteries of a narrow sidewalk in downtown Boston. A costumed guide led the way in his tri-pointed hat. And like most Freedom Trail tours until recently, there was absolutely no mention of enslavement. 

In the last few years, some Freedom Trail locations have corrected their educational material to address slavery’s prevalence in historic Boston. Last semester, my College of Communication Reporting in Depth (JO 210) journalism class partnered with GBH News to investigate what these sites were—and were not—then telling the public about Boston’s legacy of enslavement. 

By the end of the project, GBH published a digital map of our findings. My classmate and investigative partner, Jessie O’Leary (COM’24), and I were featured in a GBH video piece and live radio segment to highlight the story. 

Paul Singer, GBH investigations and impact editor, visited my Reporting in Depth class at the beginning of the semester with a plan. 

The NPR member station had already reported on ties to slavery at one Freedom Trail destination, Captain Jackson’s Historic Chocolate Shop at the Old North Church. The article demonstrated how the trade and forced labor of enslaved people built the foundation of one Colonial Bostonian’s wealth. Singer figured there had to be stories like that all across the city.

What Singer told us—and what I learned from academics like Joseph Rezek, a College of Arts & Sciences associate professor of English and director of the New England Studies Program—was that only a few (mostly white and wealthy) Bostonians had the privilege of writing and being recorded in the first draft of this city’s history.

My class’ assignment was to record the second draft.

Reporting in Depth is a required class for journalism majors and provides students with experience writing for local professional news outlets. I joined the application-only section taught by Brooke Williams, a COM associate professor of the practice of journalism, where students have had the opportunity to report for publications like the Boston Globe.

Our class divided into small teams, each focused on a different Freedom Trail stop. My teammate Jessie and I researched King’s Chapel, a 337-year-old church just up the street from the Boston Common. Our professor led newsroom-style meetings during class, where we all pitched ideas on how to further the investigation.

Before starting the GBH project, I was aware of Massachusetts’ history of both participating in, and organizing against, slavery.

In high school, I spent two years researching Black Americans’ political rights around the Antebellum and Reconstruction periods. I knew my home state was also home to influential abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison. I knew of the varied anti-slavery organizations that operated throughout the state. I also knew Massachusetts was the first English colony to legalize slavery and continued to profit from enslaved labor long after the inhumane institution was abolished here. 

With that background, I didn’t expect to be surprised by anything Jessie and I found at King’s Chapel.

We started with a 2019 report titled Slavery and King’s Chapel, which summarized two years of research conducted by the site’s history program as part of the church’s ongoing efforts to address its complicated past.

The 32-page document listed 219 enslaved individuals the history program was able to connect to King’s Chapel. It explained that the majority of funding raised in 1747 to reconstruct the church came from enslavers and people who profited from slavery. It also noted that at least 26 enslaved people were buried by King’s Chapel over a 50-year period.

But the report left some questions unanswered. Who were the enslaved people buried by the Chapel? And where are their graves?

After we reviewed records from the Massachusetts Historical Society and met with King’s Chapel historians, we discovered that key information was missing because the previous congregants who were complicit with slavery wanted it that way. According to King’s Chapel’s experts, the historic figures privileged enough to write and be recorded in church documents left purposefully vague and incomplete accounts of their ties to slavery. 

Many of the congregation’s old documents falsely described people who were clearly enslaved as “servants” and left out those individuals’ names. The locations for 26 enslaved people’s graves weren’t recorded because, as far as today’s historians can tell, nobody had bothered to write them down. 

Educators from the King’s Chapel History program explained that this was part of a broader trend among Northern states in the early 1700s to subvert the truth about slavery. While these past Bostonians weren’t willing to give up profits from human trafficking and enslaved labor, they weren’t willing to own up to it either. 

They undermined the truth because it made them feel uncomfortable—maybe even guilty.

In retrospect, these euphemisms and tactics for avoiding reality look cruel and cowardly. But this approach to American history hasn’t gone away. Just look at the wave of local and state governments across the country attacking school curricula and library books that address the racist origins of the United States.

All these efforts contribute to one result: a less informed public. The most common feedback I received from readers was that they had no idea about the prominence of slavery in Boston before our investigation. 

Without understanding how race and racism have constructed the city we know today, I wonder how this city can be prepared to address today’s problems. From ongoing de facto segregation to Boston’s national reputation as a deeply racist city, how can we move forward when we don’t know where we started?

But the truth comes with heavy baggage. It means evaluating what a title like “The Freedom Trail” really signifies. It raises queries about whether this state is as progressive and inclusive as we like to think.

These are uncomfortable questions for me as well. They stir up uncertainty about how my proud identity as a lifelong Bay Stater relates to my position as a Black first-generation American. 

But operating under the cover of ignorance cannot help navigate today’s complex reality.

I’m proud that one of my first professional journalism pieces has shone a light on the true history of this city for so many Bostonians.