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Recognizing the Week of February 20, 2011, as Frances Harper Week in Commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of her Death on February 22, 1911, in Philadelphia, and Honoring her as a Writer, Lecturer and Political Activist, who Promoted Abolition, Civil Rights, Women's Rights, and Temperance, Nationally and in the Greater Philadelphia Region.
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WHEREAS, Frances Ellen Watkins was born on September 24, 1825, to a free black family in the city of Baltimore, in the slave state of Maryland and became an orphan three years later; and
WHEREAS, Watkins was raised by her uncle and aunt to be a strong advocate for civil rights. Her uncle was the abolitionist William Watkins, director of the Academy for Negro Youth in Baltimore and father of William J. Watkins, who would become an associate of Frederick Douglass; and
WHEREAS, Watkins began her literary career in 1846, at the age of 21, with the publication of her first book of poetry, Forest Leaves; and
WHEREAS, Following the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850, conditions for free blacks in the slave state of Maryland deteriorated and the Watkins family was forced to flee Baltimore. While her uncle went to Canada, Frances Watkins went to Ohio to teach at the Union Theological Seminary, where she met William Still; and
WHEREAS, In 1853, Frances Watkins moved to Philadelphia, compelled by the desire to become active in the Underground Railroad and make herself useful in the struggle against slavery in any way she could. In the following year, she moved to New England, published Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects, and became a noted public speaker for the Maine Anti-Slavery Society, all while maintaining strong ties to the Philadelphia community; and
WHEREAS, In April of 1858, Watkins confronted the issue of segregated trolley cars in Philadelphia. In her own words, "The other day, in attempting to ride in one of the city cars, after I had entered, the conductor came to me, and wanted me to go ...
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