Celebrate Douglass Day and Black History Month by participating in a national transcribe-a-thon. You’ll learn how to bring 19th century Black history to life by transforming digitized documents from the Colored Conventions Project into legible text. This groundbreaking archive documents how nineteenth-century African Americans organized around critical issues such as voting rights, citizenship, education, labor, racial equality, and more.

This event is free and open to the public. There will be birthday cake, music, and a live stream of the national Douglass Day program. No previous transcription experience is required.

Please bring your own laptop/tablet or borrow a laptop from the Library Services Desk in the Paseo to participate in the transcribe-a-thon.

Opening remarks will be made at the start of the event and guests are welcome to drop-in as their schedule allows. Registration is recommended, but not required.

Douglass Day is an annual celebration of and day of service to the legacy of abolitionist, orator, statesman, and social reformer Frederick Douglass (1818-1895). Since 2017, thousands of volunteers from around the world come together virtually on Douglass’s chosen birthday of February 14 to participate in a national transcribe-a-thon to create new & freely available resources for learning about Black history.