Restore History, Educate, and Honor Humanity
Students at the Salisbury School brought the community together on May 1, 2021, to share their research and reflections on James Mars. Their work was part of a project-based learning course entitled, “Searching for Slavery in Northwest Connecticut,” taught by History Faculty Rhonan Mokriski.
The students documented the day with a new website and film. We invite you to take a look here.
From the Anti-Racist Teaching & Learning Collective on March 22, 2021
The Witness Stones Project began in 2017 in Guilford, Connecticut with the placement of three small plaques commemorating the lives of Moses, Candace, and Phillis. The project was inspired by the Stolpersteine project, which works to place small stones inscribed with the names and life details of Jews who were kidnapped and murdered during the Holocaust in front of the homes in which they used to live. Witness Stones has been working to memorialize enslaved individuals in several cities across Connecticut in a similar way. Continue reading.
Guilford Superintendent of Schools Paul Freeman gave a talk on Equity and Social Justice in Guilford Public Schools at the Guilford Free Library on March 11, 2021. Freeman discussed recent efforts focused on the Board of Education’s adopted initiative to ”further develop a culture, and instructional practices, that foster equity and social justice in our school community.” The lecture was presented by Witness Stones Project affiliate Witness to History: Slavery in Guilford.
We invite you to watch the lecture here:
Witness to History: Slavery in Guilford. The initiative seeks to uncover the local history of slavery, examine its legacy and share with town residents what it finds.
Students in Rhonan Mokriski’s “Searching for Slavery in Northwest Connecticut” class at the Salisbury School are becoming public historians.
By James King, Library Director at Salisbury School, published by the Atlantic Black Box Project on March 5, 2021
James Mars didn’t complain of “many things,” but one thing troubled him his entire life: the lack of “opportunity to go to school as much as I should, for all the books I ever had in school were a spelling-book, a primer, a Testament, a reading-book called Third Part, and after that a Columbian Orator.” Mr. Mars would go on to write his own book and it seems a fitting tribute to this remarkable man for his story to now further the education of others.
When Salisbury School history teacher Rhonan Mokriski asked me to help with the Searching for Slavery course, I was thrilled to take part. As the school’s librarian, I had worked with the history department on multiple occasions and was excited about the prospect of a more extensive collaboration. Over the last year, my contribution to the class has been in three parts: finding, providing, and showcasing research resources and media creation applications; researching with students during class time; and contributing articles and comments to the class’s Microsoft Teams channel. Continue reading.
What messages does our society send to students at different ends of the socio-economic spectrum? What joys and challenges do teachers face as they try to meet the complex needs of today’s students?
This panel discussion, hosted by Christ Church Greenwich, includes Kelly Bridges, a middle school history teacher at Sacred Heart Greenwich who shares details of Witness Stones project in the classroom. Also on the panel are Ann Neary, who taught at DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx for 11 years and is now at Staples High School in Westport; Sheldon Ayers, Greenwich High School Social Studies teacher for 15 years; and Debbie Smith, Greenwich High School English teacher and longtime Christ Church member.
Preservation Connecticut hosted Salisbury School history teacher Rhonan Mokriski and WSP’s Dennis Culliton to discuss a project-based learning course in public history focused on uncovering the lives of free and enslaved African American families in Northwest Connecticut.
By Ronni Newton on We-Ha.Com on February 22, 2021.
Witness Stones West Hartford project directors Tracey Wilson and Liz Devine have worked with students and others in the community to share the previously untold history of some individuals who were once enslaved by residents of the West Division (now West Hartford), and a series of virtual classes, offered at no cost, will expand that conversation to include a study of several additional people. Continue reading.
David W. Blight, the Pulitzer-Prize winning historian and Yale Professor, spoke about How the Aftermath of the Civil War Helps Us Understand Trumpism on February 11, 2021.
No historical event has left as deep an imprint on America’s collective memory as the Civil War. In the war’s aftermath, Americans had to embrace and cast off a traumatic past. Blight’s 2001 book Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory explores the perilous path of remembering and forgetting, and reveals its tragic costs to race relations and America’s national reunion.
The lecture was sponsored by Witness Stones Project affiliate Witness to History: Slavery in Guilford. Witness to History seeks to uncover the history of slavery in our town, examine its legacy, and share what we learn.
We invite you to watch the lecture here:
By Susana F. Molina in The Urban Activist on February 22, 2021
February is Afro-American History Month. It pays tribute to the generations of African Americans who struggled with adversity. This year’s commemoration, eight months after the events in Minneapolis, has turned out in a different tone. The racial trauma of an unpayable moral debt lingers over American cities.
Since the Black Awakening of the 1960s Americans have felt more confident about the importance of black history and the contributions of Afro-Americans to history and culture. Across the Atlantic the Civil Rights movements of the sixties made young generations of Germans break with a period of silence imposed by their parents about national-socialism and the Holocaust. They started a long process to come to terms with their history. But have Americans done the same with slavery? Continue reading.
