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Tackling community issues. Celebrating local voices.
Nearly two centuries after his birth on July 4, 1830, Louis Southworth is having a moment.
It’s not just his birthday that makes Southworth’s story worth remembering this Independence Day: Southworth, born in Tennessee, was an enslaved person when he first came to the Eugene-Springfield area in 1853.
Over the years, he earned the $1,000 (about $38,500 today) needed to buy his freedom — mostly through playing his beloved fiddle…