Boston's African Meeting House Gets A Facelift

If you've been on historic tours of downtown Boston, you've probably seen the State House, and the Old State House, and Old South Meeting House, and King's Chapel, and other stops on the Freedom Trail. But chances are you've missed one beautiful old building steeped in history.

The African Meeting House is easy to overlook. It's tucked away on Beacon Hill, but it's where abolitionist leaders such as Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison came to help end slavery nationwide.

The African Meeting House has been closed to the public for renovations the past few years, but it recently got $4 million in federal stimulus funds to finish that restoration work. That means this key building in Boston's African-American past will soon be made new again.

So Radio Boston's Sacha Pfeiffer paid a recent visit to the African Meeting House — although we had to get our tour from the outside, since the inside was too dusty and cluttered to allow for an indoor tour.