The Natick Historical Society invites local teens to participate in a socially-distanced community read of Frederick Douglass’s 1852 speech, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”

The read will take place on Thursday, July 2 at 6:00pm on the front steps of the Morse Institute Library. Each teen will have the opportunity to read 1-3 paragraphs from the speech, which takes about thirty minutes in total to read. The event will be filmed by local cable station Natick Pegasus.

Teen readers should email director@natickhistoricalsociety.org if interested in participating.

“It feels like an important time to try to pull this together locally – and especially to give teens a real opportunity to connect with Douglass’s words and the ongoing relevance,” says Historical Society Director Niki Lefebvre.

This event is inspired by the Mass Humanities Reading Frederick Douglass program.

I happened to be lucky enough last July, during a lunch break at my job working for the Commonwealth next to the State House, to take in a good chunk of the speech reading orchestrated by the Mass Humanities program. It was truly inspiring, as a mix of state muckety-mucks and people who just happened by, stood in line on a sweltering day, grabbed a section of the speech and one-by-one went up to the mic to read their part.

Natick Historical Society’s live event is open to the public, but they’re not really encouraging a big crowd in light of health concerns. Those reading will wear masks when not reading, and will be socially distanced. The focus will be more on sharing the recording.

More:  Subscribe to our Natick Report daily email

The Massachusetts Bureau of Geographic Information (MassGIS) has released a tool dubbed Massachusetts Before & After that lets you view from above how the landscape looked in the 1990s vs. in 2019.

Check out locations in Natick to view dramatic before-and-after scenarios based on aerial photography that is geographically referenced to the town (orthophotography).

I found it easiest to orient myself by typing Natick Common into the search bar. That part of town is easily recognized with its grass and gazebo, and I found it pretty easy to navigate from there. You can see the stark difference, for example, on the South Main Street stretch across from the Common where the condos now stand. The online tool features a slider that lets you roll over the before or after images to see what was there after or before.