Watch: Students digitize history during Douglass Day Transcribe-a-thon

With laptops in hand, Eastern joined a worldwide effort to digitize history on Feb. 20 during the Douglass Day Transcribe-a-thon. The annual, international effort honors Black history by empowering volunteers to make the writings of abolitionist Frederick Douglass and his contemporaries more accessible to the public.

Douglass Day is conducted in conjunction with the Library of Congress and takes place each year on or around Douglass’s birthday, Feb. 14, known as Douglass Day. Participants read and transcribe documents written by Douglass and other early civil rights reformers from around the 19th century.

This year’s event focused on transcribing documents from the “Colored Conventions,” a seven-decade-long series of state and national meetings that marked an early civil rights movement in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Held by free and formerly enslaved African Americans, the conventions created space for debate on collective struggles and for organizing for change. Thousands of delegates attended hundreds of conventions, where they discussed voting rights, education, labor, business, and more.

Throughout the event, students gathered with friends to transcribe documents, shared their discoveries, and listened to the official Douglass Day Spotify playlist, creating an engaging and collaborative atmosphere.