Abby Kelley Foster Day

PROCLAMATION

WHEREAS: Radical Abolitionist, Women’s Rights and Human Rights Activist Abby Kelley Foster was born on January 15, 1811, and spent much of her life in Worcester, attending a school in the Tatnuck section of the City and later purchasing with her husband Liberty Farm, which immediately became a stop on the Underground Railroad and in 1974 was registered as a National Historic Landmark; and

WHEREAS: In 1838, Foster gave her first public abolitionist speech and continued to lecture and raise funds for the antislavery movement for nearly four decades working for the passage of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution; and

WHEREAS: In 1850, Foster helped organize and spoke at the first National Woman’s Rights Convention, which was held in Worcester, Massachusetts, attended by over 1000 women and men from 11 states when the population of Worcester was 7000; and

WHEREAS: In 1851, at the second National Woman’s Rights Convention, which was held in Worcester, Massachusetts, and attended by over 3,000 women and men, Foster delivered a passionate speech imploring that women demand both the responsibilities and privileges of equality; and

WHEREAS: In 1868, Foster was one of the organizers of the convention founding the New England Woman Suffrage Association where her work was critically important in laying the foundation for the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution; and

WHEREAS: Abby Kelley Foster was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame, Seneca Falls, New York, in October 2011 as the result of a nomination by the Worcester Women’s History Project; and

WHEREAS: Abby Kelley Foster was inducted into the National Abolitionist Hall of Fame in Peterboro, New York, in October 2011 as the result of the co-nomination with the Hall and the Worcester Women’s History Project; and

NOW, THEREFORE, I, Mayor Joseph M. Petty, on the occasion of this Commemoration of the 207th anniversary of her birth and 131st anniversary of her death, do hereby proclaim Monday, January 15, 2018, to be:

ABBY KELLEY FOSTER DAY

in the City of Worcester and encourage all residents to recognize and participate in its observance.

Issued at Worcester on this 15th day of January 2018 Joseph M. Petty Mayor