David Ruggles Bookstore

Civil Rights

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The first African American bookstore and printshop which became a temporary haven for Frederick Douglas and a stop on the Underground Railroad by anti-slavery activist. By the early 1830s, Ruggles became involved in the growing anti-slavery movement in New York. White radicals, disenchanted by reform measures, now joined blacks demanding the immediate end of slavery. His grocery shop at 1 Cortlandt Street was the nation’s first black bookstore until a mob destroyed it.

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David Ruggles Bookstore

1 Cortlandt Street, New York City, NY, US 10007

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#Events and Stories #Civil Rights #BlackHistory

Plaque Inscription - Underground Railroad Station, 36 Lispenard Street On September 3, 1838, human-rights activist Frederick Douglass escaped slavery in Maryland by disguising himself as a sailor and traveling North by carriage, train and boat. A few days later he arrived at 36 Lispenard Street, then a small brick building and a "Station" on the Underground Railroad. A network of secret "Conductors" and safe houses for fugitive slaves. Here, African-American abolitionist David Ruggles kept a reading room and operated a printing press where he published anti-slavery material, including "Mirror of Liberty," an abolitionist newspaper. The site also served as headquarters of the New York Vigilance Committee, on of the Nation's most active anti-slavery campaigns, which aided more than 1,000 freedom-seeking man, women and children.

36 Lispenard Street, where David Ruggles lived, ran the New York Committee of Vigilance and helped slaves on the Underground Railroad.

The first edition of The Mirror of Liberty, published and edited by David Ruggles, appeared in July 1838. It is the first magazine published by an African American. David Ruggles Center

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David Ruggles (center) with Isaac T. Hopper (left) and Barney Corse (right) This 1838 lithograph commented on David Ruggles' arrest and imprisonment for encouraging a slave to escape. According to historian Eric Foner's 2014 article in Harper's/ " THis unusual case arose when John P. Darg, a slave trader from New Orleans arrived in New York with a slave named Thomas Hughes, who had stolen $7000 from his former master, sought refuge at the home of the Quaker abolitionist Issac T. Hopper and Barney Corse, an abolitionist Isaac T. Hopper. Hopper and Barney Corse, an abolitionist and leading light of the New York Manumission Society, offered to repay the money if Darg would grant Hughes his freedom. Darg had them all, including Ruggles, who had nothing to do with these events, indicted for complicity in theft.'

Ruggles’ ad promoting his bookstore as it appeared in The Liberator on October 11, 1834. Ruggles was the first known African-American bookseller in the United States. David Ruggles Center