Monumental Newark: Reimagined Sites of 19th Century Newark
Black Abolitionist Historical Monuments Reimagined

Located on what used to be known as Plane Street, where, in the nineteenth century, free and enslaved African Americans fought for their rights. Icons like Frederick Douglass delivered speeches to the Black community here, and Samuel Cornish, co-editor of the country’s first African American newspaper, worked as an activist and pastor. Hannah Mandeville, freed from her enslaver in Jersey City, moved to Newark to become a member and fundraiser at the Plane Street Colored Church on this street. Angelina Grimke, a legendary anti-slavery feminist, and author Harriet Beecher Stowe’s brother, Charles Beecher, attended anti-slavery meetings only blocks away. Plane Street was the heart of the free Black community in Newark.