September is Underground Railroad History Month! Detroit is one of the most important cities for the Underground Railroad!Here in Downtown Detroit, at Congress and St. Antoine is the historic site of the William Webb home. William Webb was an abolitionist, a stationmaster on the Underground Railroad, a grocer, and a member of the Colored Vigilant Committee. It was at his home that the Frederick Douglass-John Brown Meeting occurred on March 12, 1859.In the home of William Webb, two hundred feet north of this spot, two abolitionist leaders met several Black Detroiters on March 12, 1859, to discuss methods of ending slavery.John Brown was in Detroit as a conductor on the Underground Railroad to assist 13 freedom seekers who had escaped from slavery in Missouri. He hid them in various stations in Detroit, including the Webb home. He stayed at Webb’s home himself. Brown was leading the Black men and women to freedom in Canada. Frederick Douglass was in Detroit to deliver two antislavery speeches: one at Second Baptist Church of Detroit, the oldest Black congregation in Michigan, and a station on the Underground Railroad, and another at the original city hall in Detroit near what is now Campus Martius.John Brown (1800-1859), fiery antislavery leader, believed that he would have to kill a lot of white people in order to free Black people. He had already been doing this in Kansas. And on October 16, 1859, Brown would lead an attack on the military warehouse at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Most of his band would be killed by soldiers and Brown himself was captured, tried and hung. Frederick Douglass (c. 1817-1895), escaped from enslavement, and became an internationally recognized antislavery orator and writer. Douglass believed that ending slavery would take a fight against the US government or swaying the US government to the side of the abolitionists. He believed that Brown’s plan was doomed to failure.Although they differed on tactics to be used, they were united in the immortal cause of freedom for Black people. Among the prominent members of Detroit’s Black abolitionist community reported to have been present were: William Lambert, businessman and abolitionist leader, and co-founder of the Detroit Vigilant Committee, and the African American Mysteries, Order of the Men of Oppression. Frederick Douglass was staying in Lambert’s home at 497 Larned St. near St. Aubin. Also, Lambert was the co-founder of the 3rd Black church in Detroit - St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church Detroit (now, St. Matthew's & St. Joseph's Episcopal Church Detroit). George DeBaptiste, businessman and abolitionist leader, and co-founder of the Detroit Vigilant Committee, and the African American Mysteries, Order of the Men of Oppression. He owned his own steamboat - the T. Whitney - and proposed a plan to blow up churches in the south at this meeting. Dr. Joseph Ferguson, the first Black person to get a medical degree from Detroit Medical College, now known as Wayne State University School of Medicine. He was the son-in-law of Webb, and the father of William