Paths of slave and local student meet in New York

One was a 19th century slave, the other a 21st century college student.

An abolitionist and a scholar of history, whose destinies, though so very different from one another, brought them to the same place. And now the path of the student and that of the slave have met in New York City.

Tim Shenk, of Annapolis, went to New York by way of Columbia University. A 2003 graduate of the Severn School, Mr. Shenk is a history major entering his junior year at Columbia.

Frederick Douglass, of Maryland's Eastern Shore and later Baltimore went to New York by way the Underground Railroad in his escape from slavery.

This summer...