Witness Stones Project, Inc.

Restore History, Educate, and Honor Humanity

In The Media

Bearing Witness at Wayside Cottage

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Wayside Cottage courtesy of the Junior League of Central Westchester

By Todd Sliss in the Scarsdale Inquirer on April 6, 2023

History doesn’t change. What we learn about history does and how we view it over time certainly evolves. And while some people and groups are trying to bury history, others are trying to unearth it.

The Junior League of Central Westchester (JLCW), a nonprofit educational women’s volunteer organization based out of the Wayside Cottage in Scarsdale since taking stewardship of the historic house in 1953, has partnered with Witness Stones Project to uncover the true history of the people who called the Cottage home.

Witness Stones Project (www.witnessstonesproject.org) was founded by now-retired schoolteacher Dennis Culliton, who initially was looking for a way to educate his students in Guilford, Connecticut, about the local history of slavery. Witness Stones Project was inspired by Stolpersteine in Germany, which has put over 70,000 stones in the ground where Jewish people were last known to live or work freely prior to the Holocaust. Continue reading.

Social Studies ConneCTion

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Social studies leaders Steve Armstrong and Tony Roy connect with educators and advocates from across the state on their Social Studies ConneCTion podcast. Witness Stones Project founder and Executive Director joined them for a fascinating discussion on how school districts across Connecticut embark on a journey into our state’s dark past. Dennis’s work in the Witness Stones Project not only commemorates the lives of those who endured enslavement but works to honor those of the past and help students and educators appreciate localized history coming to life. We invite you to listen to the episode here.

Thank You for Support of Church Program

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Letter from the Reverend Jan Gregory-Charpentier and Tony Jones to the Westerly Sun on March 13, 2023

On behalf of the entire Kingston Congregational Church and our Kingston Witness Stones Project task force, we want to offer a tremendous “thank you” for all of the efforts in helping to promote our Witness to History event on Saturday, March 4. It was a smashing success with broad community attendance!

Thank you all for the support of Dr. Christy Clark-Pujara’s timely presentation. Many attendees expressed that they were grateful they came.

The writers are senior pastor and communications director, respectively, of Kingston Congregational Church.

Clint Smith Discusses the Witness Stones Project

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Atlantic writer and best-selling author Clint Smith joined Michel Martin to discuss his cover story on what America can learn from German efforts to memorialize the Holocaust.

A group of teachers and students in Connecticut began the Witness Stones Project…. Ultimately it is those small, neighborhood-, community-, and city-based initiatives that make the most impact and have the most potential to change minds, to change hearts, to change our understanding of ourselves. –Clint Smith, best-selling author of How the Word Is Passed

Praise from Clint Smith

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Photo credit: Carletta Girma

We are honored to have our work recognized by Clint Smith in The Atlantic. In an interview with Atlantic editor Isabel Fattal, the best-selling author of How the Word Is Passed said:

There are examples of communities in the U.S. that are not waiting for the government to tell them that they should build a memorial or they should create sites of public memory. I think one of the most compelling is a group in Connecticut that’s doing a Witness Stones Project, based on the stumbling-stones project in Germany. Middle- and high-school students are placing stones to mark the spaces where enslaved people lived, worked, and worshipped.

We invite you to read the full article here.

 

What America Can Learn About Atonement

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We are honored to have our work recognized by Clint Smith.

Some in the U.S. have undertaken efforts reminiscent of those in Germany. In Connecticut, a group of educators started the Witness Stones Project, modeled after the Stolpersteine in Germany. The group works with schoolchildren in five Northeast states to help them more intimately understand the history of slavery in their town….

None of these projects, whether in the U.S. or Germany, can ever be commensurate with the history they are tasked with remembering. It is impossible for any memorial to slavery to capture its full horror, or for any memorial to the Holocaust to express the full humanity of the victims. No stone in the ground can make up for a life. No museum can bring back millions of people. It cannot be done, and yet we must try to honor those lives, and to account for this history, as best we can. It is the very act of attempting to remember that becomes the most powerful memorial of all.

We invite you to read the full article here.

 

Witness Stones Project Students Recognized by Hopewell Valley Historical Society

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Photo courtesy of HVHS Trustee Cheryl Jackson

By Amie Rukenstein on MercerMe.com on October 3, 2022

At its annual meeting on Sunday, September 18 at the Watershed Institute, the Hopewell Valley Historical Society announced award winners and attendees were treated to a talk about the historic Drake house and its most famous inhabitant, Muriel Gardiner Buttinger, who went to Europe to meet Sigmund Freud, fought the nazis with her husband Joseph Buttinger, and finally settled on the grounds of what is now the Watershed Institute.

Among the award winners were the entire 2021/22 8th grade class for their work on the Witness Stones project. Their Principal, Nicole Gianfredi told MercerMe: “I am so proud of our Timberlane students and their work with the Witness Stones Project. With the guidance of our social studies teachers, our eighth grade students engaged in research and civic engagement, while restoring the history and honoring the humanity of Friday Truehart. While it was an extraordinary learning opportunity for the students, it was an incredibly impactful experience for everyone at the [Witness Stones] Ceremony.” Continue reading.

New Jersey Witness Stone Affiliate Set to Expand

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On the property of the Stoutsburg Sourland African American Museum in Skillman, visitors applaud a speaker at a celebration ceremony called “Preservation in Action.” Michael Mancuso | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

By Michael Mancuso in NJ.com on September, 22, 2022

If it takes a village to raise a child, sometimes that’s also what it takes to bring hidden history to light.

That is certainly the case for the Stoutsburg Sourland African American Museum (SSAAM), founded in 2014 with a mission “to tell the story of the unique culture, experiences, and contributions of the African American community of the Sourland Mountain Region.” Continue reading.

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