Frederick Douglass is synonymous with Rochester, and the impact the abolitionist leader had can be felt across the city.

Even at his final resting place at Mount Hope Cemetery, where he was buried in 1895. And in that same cemetery lies a man whose life was as important to the fight for freedom as it was in the life of Douglass in Rochester.

Rev. Thomas James was born into slavery in 1804 in Canajoharie. Eventually, he escaped, running for his freedom from a farm where he was forced to work.

James found refuge in Canada, staying there for months before returning to New York to begin his abolitionist work.

Historical scholar Cheryl Sampson is dedicated to bringing Rev. James' extraordinary story to light.

“He hears the story of Fredrick Douglass and says to himself, 'This needs to be a part of the story we tell about former slaves to convince mostly white families to keep using for abolition,'” said Sampson. “Turns out Reverend Thomas James had an autobiography. I read it and my initial thought upon reading it was that he sounded like Forest Gump. He was everywhere in the 19th century.”

Through her research at the Rochester Museum of Science, Sampson pieced together strategies the reverend used to create a network of freedom.

“There were certain segments of the city where Black people said, 'We're going to form our own communities…because that was a particular mindset,” said Sampson.

James was of that mindset.

Building churches and schools in New York and Massachusetts with many still standing today, it was at a church in Massachusetts where he ordained Frederick Douglass before helping his family relocate to Rochester.

On the Rochester map is the church where James preached, but his work went way beyond the walls of any church.

He led the effort to integrate public transportation in Massachusetts over 100 years before the Civil Rights Act passed. He helped in the release of the Africans who emancipated themselves aboard the Amistad.

Not satisfied with winning his own freedom, he secured the freedom of 2,000 enslaved people in Kentucky after the Emancipation Proclamation.

“He was able to go house to house and pull out Black people where the enslavers were saying, 'No, we are not going to tell them that they are free,” said Sampson.

Like many abolitionists in Upstate New York, the former slave was also active in the Underground Railroad through the most powerful tool those days: education.

“He set up this camp where he taught people reading and basically, how to live. And there were refugee camps set up like this across the south, and Black people knew if you could get there, you could be free,” he said.

Sampson hopes the story of James and the efforts of RMSC will put a focus on the importance of history being accessible to all who seek truth.

“This is history that happened. People have to own up to that history. What are we going to do to change if we believe that the world is really different, but those structures are still in place what are we doing to remove those structures?” said Sampson.