The Branford Historical Society welcomed the Witness Stones Project on November 10, 2021. We invite you to watch the lecture here:
Witness Stones Project to Partner with Wooster School
The Witness Stones Project today announced a new affiliation with the Wooster School in Danbury, Connecticut. The college-preparatory school will be using the Project’s curriculum and landscape markers to expand their teaching of the history of slavery in Connecticut.
Students will examine primary source documents, including property records, probate documents, and census data, in order to understand the reality of slavery and to restore the memory of those individuals who were enslaved. They will learn how to document and describe the dehumanization and paternalism of slavery; the economic and legal framework that supported slavery; and, the agency, resistance, and contributions of the enslaved to our local and national history. Finally, these students will be inviting their communities to witness as they install memorial stones for individuals who were enslaved in their town.
The Wooster School is guided by its purpose, promise, and beliefs, which represent the natural evolution of the school’s mission since its founder, the Reverend Aaron Coburn, charged them with preparing its students to be “gentle, generous, truthful, kind, and brave.” These commitments remind them that as a school community they must learn from the past, embrace the present, and look to the future as they prepare their graduates for college and lives of purpose in a world of increasing complexity and change.
Witness Stones Project to Partner with Connecticut’s Regional District 4
The Witness Stones Project today announced a new affiliation with Connecticut’s Regional District 4. The District serves students in Chester, Deep River, and Essex, Connecticut. The District’s John Winthrop Middle School will be using the Project’s curriculum and landscape markers to expand their teaching of the history of slavery in colonial Connecticut. Local support for the Project is being provided by the Connecticut River Museum and St. John’s Episcopal Church in Essex.
Students will examine primary source documents, including property records, probate documents, and census data, in order to understand the reality of slavery and to restore the memory of those individuals who were enslaved. They will learn how to document and describe the dehumanization and paternalism of slavery; the economic and legal framework that supported slavery; and, the agency, resistance, and contributions of the enslaved to our local and national history. Finally, these students will be inviting their communities to witness as they install memorial stones for individuals who were enslaved in their town.
The mission of the Chester, Deep River, Essex & Region 4 Schools is to engage all students in a rigorous and collaborative educational program. They prepare their learners to be respectful citizens who are empowered to contribute in a globalized society.
The Connecticut River Museum’s mission is to lead in the study, preservation and celebration of the cultural and natural heritage of the Connecticut River and its valley. By deepening understanding of the River’s importance to past generations, the Museum will inspire the stewardship of future generations.
Yale University & the Politics of Slavery
Witness Stones Project affiliate Witness to History: Slavery in Guilford presented the webinar “Yale University & the Politics of Slavery” on November 4, 2021
The talk was given by Bennett Parten, a doctoral candidate and a member of the Yale and Slavery Group which the institution’s president created and charged with studying the University’s history.
Poets Marilyn Nelson, Rhonda M. Ward, Antoinette Brim-Bell, and Kate Rushin and Their Witness Stones Project Collaboration
The poets’ collaborative project appears in the the November 2021 issue of Poetry magazine. The poems were commissioned by the Witness Stones Old Lyme Affiliate and were debuted at the June 4, 2021, Witness Stones Installation in Old Lyme. We invite you to read the interview about the collaboration and the full portfolio of poems:
What birthed this collaboration?
Although the four of us did think of ourselves as a “team” of poets, our project is less a collaboration among the four of us than a collaboration of each of us with the brilliant and generous historian who was our guide: Carolyn Wakeman. Carolyn is a former professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where she served as faculty chair of the Graduate School of Journalism and director of the Asia-Pacific Program. Our collaboration grew from a larger collaboration with the Witness Stones Project, started in 2017 in Guilford, CT, with the mission to restore the history and honor the humanity of the enslaved individuals who helped build our communities. The Project provides research assistance, teacher development, and curriculum support to help middle and high school students study the history of slavery in their own communities. The students explore the lives of enslaved individuals through primary source documents, doing original historical research with the aim of remembering. And, of course, everyone involved in the project knows that we are collaborating not only with each other, but also with long-gone enslaved individuals who were denied voices during their lifetimes.
—Marilyn
Yale University and the Politics of Slavery
“Yale University & the Politics of Slavery” is the next talk in the webinar series co-sponsored by Guilford’s Witness Stones Project Affiliate Witness to History: Slavery in Guilford.
The talk will be given by Bennett Parten, a doctoral candidate and a member of the Yale and Slavery Group which the institution’s president created and charged with studying the University’s history.
“As an American institution that is 319 years old,” President Peter Salovey wrote on creating the task force, “Yale has a complex past that includes associations, many of them formative, with individuals who actively promoted slavery, anti-Black racism, and other forms of exploitation. We have a responsibility to explore this history, including its most difficult aspects; we cannot ignore our institution’s own ties to slavery and racism, and we should take this opportunity to research, understand, analyze, and communicate that history.”
In his talk, Mr. Parten will discuss the university’s relationship to slavery and abolitionism, and show how campus debate evolved in the lead-up to the Civil War. His interests include the histories of race, slavery, abolition, and emancipation.
Registration is required to join this webinar.
Click here to register for this online lecture.
Witness Stones Project Executive Director Makes the Case for Teaching History
By Mark Pazniokas in the Connecticut Mirror on October 24, 2021
Guilford’s children are capable of absorbing hard lessons about an overlooked past,” [Culliton] said.
“You read a book like ‘Disowning Slavery’ by Joanne Pope Mellish, and you read that book, and it’s not critical race theory,” Culliton said. “It is history of New England and how we forgot about slavery.”
Witness Stones has now installed 72 markers, not all in Guilford. There are more to come, each with a story of an enslaved human being who contributed to building New England.
They can be found on both sides of the Guilford Green, one by the entrance to Town Hall. They are meant to be discovered, to provoke a question, a thought of what came before, what it means today.
Witness Stones is about telling an uncomfortable truth, something done less than formally in the U.S. than other nations, Culliton said.
Canada’s treatment of its indigenous people is the subject of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Germany is forthright in confronting the Holocaust. In fact, the Witness Stones was inspired by the stolpersteine, literally “stumbling stone” in German. They commemorate the lives of Jews killed in the Holocaust on the streets where they lived and worked.
“In South Africa, there’s a lot of things that aren’t wonderful, but they tell the truth there,” said Culliton, who has traveled there. “They tell the truth about apartheid in Johannesburg. They tell the truth about slavery in Cape Town, and it’s out in the open.”
Culliton said the same can be done in the U.S.
“I never taught the kids that America was an awful place. I’m a Marine Corps veteran. My father fought in World War II. I love my country,” Culliton said. “You have issues with your family, you don’t love them less. And that’s our country — we don’t stop loving our country because it made mistakes.” Read the full article.
Guilford Superintendent Discusses Witness Stones Project
From Connecticut Public Radio on October 19, 2021
Guilford High School English Chair George Cooksey and Superintendent Paul Freeman explain that while critical race theory is not itself taught in the K-12 environment in Guilford, “dimension” and diversity of source material is still a priority. Listen to the broadcast here.
Religion, Race and Slavery in Colonial New England with Dr. Ken Minkema
WSP Looks Forward to Working with New Historic Deerfield President
The Greenfield Recorder on September 27, 2021
DEERFIELD — Historic Deerfield welcomed John Davis, the museum’s new president and CEO, earlier this month as he begins his job after being hired in May.
Davis, the former provost and undersecretary for museums, education and research at the Smithsonian Institution, said in a press release that he is ready to help Historic Deerfield move forward in the 21st century. Continue reading.
