News
Witness Stones Project Begins in Guilford
Guilford Aims to Come to Grips with Town’s Past Slavery
Our panel discussion was a great hit! Thank you Lauretta from the Guilford Free Library for your assistance, the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center for providing Oliver Scholes as a moderator, our panelists for their expertise, and all of the attendees for sharing their minds and hearts about how our study of slavery in the past can make a difference in the present!
By Ed Stannard in the New Haven Register on September 13, 2017
About 100 people met Wednesday to face the reality of being part of a culture that is still stained by the truth that white people owned black Africans in their own town.
The meeting, held at the Guilford Free Library, was organized by the Witness Stones Project, which plans to embed granite and brass memorials in the sidewalks outside where enslaved people lived in Guilford.
The crowd heard from a panel, then talked about their experiences among themselves and with the rest of the gathering. The fact that slavery was not just a Southern institution was repeated by many, as were the experiences of people witnessing or facing racism in their own lives.
Dennis Culliton, chairman of the Witness Stones Project and an eighth-grade history and language arts teacher at Adams Middle School, told of the history of slavery in Guilford, which began “in the 17th century with the Indian servants of William Leete to the 18th century with the bill of sale of Bocha, a Carolina Indian to Samuel Scranton in 1713 to the record of birth of Pompey to Montros and Phillis in 1729.”
There were about 60 slaves in Guilford in 1774, Culliton said, declining to three in the 1810 census. “The death of the last enslaved person in Guilford is Pompey at 89 years old in 1819,” he said. Continue reading.
Doug Nygren of Guilford talks about being inspired by memorial stones to Jews killed in the Holocaust in Germany to create Witness Stones in Guilford. Video by Ed Stannard–New Haven Register
The Rev. Ginger Brasher-Cunningham, pastor of the First Congregational Church in Guilford, talks about growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, during the Civil Rights Movement. Video by Ed Stannard–New Haven Register
Marji Lipshez-Shapiro of the Anti-Defamation League of Connecticut, describes incidents of racial and ethnic hatred in Connecticut. Video by Ed Stannard–New Haven Register.
Guilford Group to Remember Town’s Slaves with Witness Stones
By Ed Stannard in the New Haven Register on September 9, 2017
Guilford>> The memories of those African Americans who were enslaved in Guilford will be preserved in granite and brass markers around town as the result of the Witness Stones Project. Continue reading.
Guilford Witness Stones Project Officially Launches July 20
By Zoe Roos in the Guilford Courier on July 18, 2017.
Guilford — A nation’s history is never perfect and there are often parts people would rather forget or not discuss, but no part of history should go unrecognized. It may have been centuries ago and a practice more commonly associated with the south, but slave ownership is a part of Guilford’s history. To remember and recognize the slaves who lived in Guilford, the Guilford Preservation Alliance (GPA) is starting the Witness Stones Project, a project through which a stone will be placed on the sidewalk in front of a building or home where a slave once lived or worked in town. Continue reading.
Guilford Group Starts Slavery Plaque Project
By Zoe Roos in the Guilford Courier on April 12, 2017
Guilford — Wandering by historic homes in Guilford, a passerby will often notice a plaque adorning the front of a building indicating the year the house was built, who built it, and who of importance might have lived there—perhaps a famous figure such as Harriet Beecher Stowe or a soldier. The plaques are a reminder of the people who have come and gone over the years—but what about the people history has since forgotten?” Continue reading.
Witness Stones Project Founder Honored by the Guilford Preservation Alliance
On September 26, 2016, the Witness Stones Project’s Dennis Culliton received the Charles Hubbard Award for the his research and education work on slavery and African Americans in Guilford. Continue reading.
