Northup Freedom Day 2018 scheduled January 4
The 2018 Solomon Northup Freedom Day will be celebrated next Thursday (Jan. 4) in Marksville. This year’s event will commemorate the 165th anniversary of the freeing of the author of the autobiographical book 12 Years a Slave.
Solomon Northup was a free black man living in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. He was lured into leaving the state in 1841, kidnapped in Washington, D.C. and sold into slavery. Northup was enslaved in Bunkie and the Cheneyville areas. He was freed 11 years later at the Avoyelles Parish courthouse in Marksville where Judge Ralph Cushman ruled Northup was freeborn and not a slave.
He then wrote his book about his experience which became a best seller at the time. In modern times the book was anotated, verified and republished by the late Sue Eakin of Bunkie. The story was also made into a recent Oscar winning movie.
Activities on the courthouse square will begin at 11 a.m., when a chartered bus will leave the courthouse to tour the Northup Trail sites. There is no charge for the tour, but seating is limited to 40. If full, others may follow in their own vehicles.
At noon, the coach will stop for a tour of the Epps House which Northup helped to build as a slave near Bunkie. The house was relocated to the campus of LSU-A. At 1:30 p.m., there will be a roadside stop at Live Oak Plantation in Cheneyville. This will be followed by a visit to the Bunkie Depot and the site of Sue Eakin’s office at 2 p.m.
The bus will return to the Avoyelles Parish Courthouse at 3 p.m. where there will be musical entertainment. A new historical marker will be unveiled in front of the courthouse at 3:30 p.m. There will also be a commemoration of the courthouse's 90th anniversary.
There will also be an art exhibit at the Avoyelles Arts Council Office on Mark Street.
The day will end at 4 p.m. with a reception at the site of Judge Cushman’s office, which is the current Bailey’s on the Square.
For information or to reserve a seat on the bus, call Avoyelles Commission of Tourism at (318) 964-2025.