In The Media

Witness Stone Project Remembers Forgotten Connecticut Slaves

WSP · Jun 15, 2022 ·

By Amber Diaz on NBC Connecticut on June 15, 2022

The Witness Stones Project is a K-12 educational initiative started in Connecticut. Its mission is to “restore the history and honor the humanity of the enslaved people who helped build our communities.”

As a former eighth grade history teacher with a passion for the past, Dennis Culliton understands each story of an enslaved person is different, but equally as important as the next. It drove him to start the project, emulated after the Stolpersteine in Germany.

“I saw the power of this unknown history, this hidden history that was there in the archives that was sitting there and whom better than the students to tell that story,” Culliton said. Continue reading.

Witness Stones Project Students Take History to the Street

WSP · May 23, 2022 ·

Through a project a year in the making, West Hartford will renamed a road in Blue Back Square to honor a mother and daughter who were held as slaves in town in the 18th century.

Wallingford Slavery Project Reveals ‘History That Affects Us Today’

WSP · May 12, 2022 ·

Carol Naamon-Kelly, of Meriden, holds a portrait of her great grandfather Allen Lorenzo Washington on Thursday during an interview at the Record-Journal office in Meriden. Naamon-Kelly recognized her family’s name during a presentation on enslaved people at the Wallingford Public Library last year and then traced her family’s history of enslavement in Wallingford. Photos by Dave Zajac, Record-Journal

By Devin Leith-Yessian in the Record-Journal on May 12, 2022

WALLINGFORD — The descendants of a man who was enslaved on a Virginia plantation before coming to Wallingford with Union soldiers are reconnecting with their family’s history with the help of local researchers working on the Wallingford Historic Preservation Trust’s “Enslaved Wallingford” project.

Meriden resident Carol Naamon-Kelly first learned of the journey Allen Lorenzo Washington, her great grandfather, made from Virginia through the work of Bobbie Borne, who was writing about Washington’s life for a magazine article published in June 2021. Continue reading.

WPKN Spotlight on Arts & Culture

WSP · Apr 11, 2022 ·

Witness Stones Project Receives Two Grants from CT Humanities

WSP · Mar 25, 2022 ·

In the Guilford Courier on March 24, 2022

Connecticut Humanities, the statewide nonprofit affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, has awarded the Witness Stones Project, Inc., a $7,800 CT Cultural Fund Operating Support Grant and a $10,000 SHARP Capacity Grant.

The mission of the Witness Stones Project (WSP) is to restore the history and honor the humanity of the enslaved individuals who helped build our communities. This work is accomplished through teacher workshops, engagement with students and the larger community, and, finally, memorializing enslaved individuals through the installation of Witness Stones. The CT Humanities grants will support staff development, allowing WSP to broaden and diversify the student audience served. Continue reading.

Journalist Yamiche Alcindor, speaking at the University of Hartford on Feb. 8, 2022, said that “Freedom is never won, it is always earned. … Each generation must fight for it to build the beloved community.”

The 2,200 square foot Martin Luther King mural painted in June 2021 helps us to keep the concept and reality of freedom alive in this community, in this generation. It reminds us that we stand on the shoulders of those who defined and redefined freedom in the past. Continue reading.

Greenwich’s “Forgotten” Enslaved Population: Witness Stones Project Seeks to Tell Their Stories

WSP · Feb 12, 2022 ·

Grave stones of former Bush-Holley House enslaved laborers Hester Mead, left, and her mother Candice Bush are at Union Cemetery in Greenwich, Conn. Thursday, Feb. 10, 2022. Hester was born in 1807 and freed in 1828, while her mother Candice was born in 1780 and freed in 1825.

by Robert Marchant on February 12, 2022 in the Greenwich Time

GREENWICH — Few markers of slavery exist in southern Connecticut, reminders of a time when men and women were bought and sold like property or livestock.

Two of them stand at Union Cemetery in Greenwich — the headstones of Hester Mead and her mother Candice Bush, both born into slavery at the Bush homestead in Cos Cob, now the site of the Greenwich Historical Society. Continue reading.

A Black History Trail for Wallingford

WSP · Feb 11, 2022 ·

Powder Horn of Dick Freedom courtesy of the Nehemiah Royce House.

By Lorraine Connelly in My Record Journal on February 11, 2022

Wallingford has many trails — a wine trail, a Trail of Terror, numerous walking trails, and the historic George Washington Trail to name a few. According to our town’s website, Gen. George Washington made two trips through town, one in 1775 to gather provisions for his troops and the other in 1789 as president. His route to Durham, known as the George Washington Trail, runs from the center of town through East Wallingford. Cement markers can be found along the trail.

In conjunction with the 350+2 Jubilee Celebration this June, Wallingford’s Descendants’ Committee is restoring and adding two new locations to the GW Trail — one in front of the Water Division on South Cherry Street, and another on North Branford Road south of the Water Division’s gate to the Ulbrich Reservoir dam. “The Wallingford Public Works Department will be installing them in the spring,” notes Bob Beaumont, chairman of the Descendants’ Committee. There will be a total of 14 commemorative plaques when the project is completed.

Along with honoring the lives of Wallingford’s descendants, the Wallingford Historic Preservation Trust will honor our Black colonial ancestors — who are related to us by their long historical roots in this town. Many of these ancestors have been forgotten and not commemorated formally. Continue reading.