Henry “H.P.” Jacobs played a pivotal role in Ypsilanti’s Black history in the mid-1800s.
H.P. Jacobs forged freedom papers for him and his family to escape slavery in Alabama and fled to Canada in the 1850s.
James Egge is the Associate Dean for Programs at Eastern Michigan University. He says Jacobs later returned to Ypsilanti and worked as a janitor at the school’s predecessor, Michigan State Normal College…