Telegram and Gazette Turns to Holy Cross Historian for Insight

Thomas Doughton, a historian and senior lecturer in the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies at the College of the Holy Cross, is quoted in two Telegram & Gazette stories as part of the newspaper’s Black History Month coverage.

The first piece, ‘True story of Central Mass. boys' abduction, rescue shows slave trade's reach in 1839,’ tells the story of Nahum Gardner Hazard, a free black man from Worcester who was kidnapped when he was 8 years old, along with another neighborhood boy. They were tracked down and returned to their homes safely, but according to Doughton abductions of free people of color from Northern states was a common practice, and it was a stroke of luck that Hazard was located before he could be taken too far South.

"If Nahum had been bought and taken out of Virginia," Doughton said, "he might not have been heard from again." Read the full story on the Telegram’s website.

In the second Telegram piece, “Kids have an easy grasp of fairness,” Doughton provides insight into the racial makeup of Worcester’s East Side neighborhood generations ago.  Read more from the Telegram.

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