Modern-Day Slavery Museum Northeast Tour, Days 14-17 Boston, Northampton, New Paltz and Baltimore

Photo credit: theMOVE
On Monday morning, the museum crew set up in the heart of Boston with City Hall as the backdrop for another hot New England day. The stop yielded a great story on the local NPR affiliate, 99.9 WBUR (about 25:30 minutes into the segment), as well as coverage in the blogosphere.

 

The museum quickly became a point of interest for the throngs of Bostonians criss-crossing City Hall Plaza en route to the nearby T-stop and farmers market. The site also received many planned visits thanks to outreach by Massachusetts Interfaith Worker Justice, the Unitarian Universalist Association, Oxfam America, and other local organizations.

 

 

The stop continued well into the evening, as cooler temperatures allowed visitors to linger and inspect the finer details of the exhibit.
 

The next day, the tour passed through Northampton, MA, an area that is home to five universities and plenty of conscientious consumers. Set up on Main Street, the museum received visits from the Massachusetts Conference of the United Church of Christ and Nuestras Raices in Holyoke, among others.
The road-weary tour crew also took some time out of their schedule to pay a visit to a nearby Stop & Shop, where they flyered extensively and dropped off a manager letter encouraging the company to forge a partnership with the CIW to address farmworker exploitation in its tomato supply chain.

 

On hand for the afternoon’s activities were local allies, including Alex, a student at Hampshire College and intern with Verite who worked hard to bring the museum to Northampton.

 

Day Sixteen found the tour crew back in the state of New York, this time in the quiet town of New Paltz, midway between Albany and New York City. The stop was hosted at St. Andrews Episcopal Church and received support from Rural Migrant Ministry, the Poughkeepsie Farm Project, and other local organizations, all of whom were gracious enough to accommodate the museum on very short notice.

 

And finally, after two days on the road from upstate New York, the museum pulled into the center of Baltimore’s historic district and dropped anchor in the city’s bustling Inner Harbor.
The USS Constellation, the crown jewel of the Inner Harbor, provided a perfect backdrop for the visit. From 1859-1861, the sloop-of-war was the flagship of the US African Squadron — a unit of the US Navy — and intercepted three slave ships off the coast of Africa, freeing over 700 slaves.

 

 

Throughout the day, the museum caught the attention of dozens of tourists and local faith allies…
 

… and, of course, our good friends at United Workers, who are engaged in their own struggle for fair development right in the heart of the Inner Harbor.
Stay tuned for the final tour update from Charlotte, NC!