‘We Were Here Too’ Honors Forgotten Black Colonial Community in Boston

A new project in Boston will honor the contributions of Boston's colonial African American community.

Incorporating history with technology, "We Were Here Too" invites members of the public to connect with a multi-layered storytelling experience. The project features archival images, augmented reality, video interviews with historians and community voices, digital illustrations, voice performances, and historical content obtained from museum collections and archives worldwide.

The project uses the Copp's Hill Burying Ground as the setting to bring history to life. Members of the public can also access images and information from the project on the website wewereheretoo.myportfolio.com.

According to a City of Boston news release, this project honors the lives of colonial-era African Americans in Boston's North End. Many of these individuals were interred, or are believed to have been buried, at Copp's Hill Burying Ground. The burial grounds were created in 1659. It is regarded as Boston's largest colonial cemetery.

The project honors historical figures, such as Phillis Wheatley Peters. In 1773, she became the first African-American woman to publish a poetry book. Prince Hall was an abolitionist who fought in the Revolutionary War and later founded Prince Hall Masonry. Onesimus was an African who was key in bringing knowledge of smallpox vaccinations to America.

"We Were Here Too" was developed by Roberto Mighty, in partnership with the Freedom Trail Foundation and Old North Illuminated. “I hope folks will experience this exhibit and learn that African Americans — free and enslaved — were living and working in Boston at the same time as Paul Revere, Abigail Adams, and John Hancock. We were here, too,” he said in the release.