We Claim/Reclaim Space

The Boston and Cambridge area during Darby Vassall’s life. Image credit: **Library of Congress, Washington, DC**

As an effort to center stories of Black resistance and contributions of enslaved people that have been overlooked in popular historic narratives, the Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery Initiative commissioned a digital exhibition by the Museum of African American History, Boston & Nantucket: We Claim/Reclaim Space.

The central figure of the exhibition is Darby Vassall, who was born into enslavement (read the sidebar titled “Darby Vassall and Black Resistance” here). Darby went on to play an important role in Boston’s free Black community, and his life and activism illustrate Black resilience, agency, and achievement in the face of persistent discrimination.

We Claim/Reclaim Space examines the lives, work, and legacies of early Black and abolitionist communities in Cambridge and Boston as they established and recorded their history, memory, and activism. From the American Revolution through the end of Reconstruction, they pushed to expand the boundaries of freedom and citizenship locally, nationally, and ultimately globally.