Lecture
Let’s Not Fight the Civil War Again
By Jackie Hemond in the Suffield Observer on June 30, 2021
In June, I witnessed an amazing dialogue. For two days, the Phelps-Hatheway House hosted two programs, both featuring Joe McGill, a national figure and founder of the Slave Dwelling Project. The hook for the Project is ingenious. McGill sleeps in slave quarters for a night. He has done this at 150 sites in 25 states so far. He does not review how comfortable a slave bed is. The point of his sleepovers is threefold: to preserve former slave dwellings; lift slavery from the footnotes of history; and engage his audience in a thoughtful, non-combative discussion about slavery, racism, race relations and racial equity.
We were engaged! So engaged that both programs ran overtime. The second day was a panel discussion when McGill was flanked by Dennis Culliton, Founder and Executive Director of the Witness Stones Project and Pat Wilson Pheanious, Co-Chair of the Witness Stones Project. Suffield will soon be placing a witness stone for Tamer, an enslaved woman, purchased “as a slave for life” when she was seven by Luther Loomis who lived at the corner of Bridge and Main Streets. Continue reading.
Oral History and the African American Experience
Hear Tamara Lanier explain how buying a salad at an ice cream store and a promise to her dying mother led to discovering that Harvard University possessed images of her enslaved great, great, great grandfather, Renty Taylor, and his daughter, Delia. Learn how oral history, research and luck led to that discovery and how that discovery has led to a landmark lawsuit against Harvard over who owns the record of past injustices and whether past injustices are relevant in determining ownership.
Presented by local Guilford affiliate Witness to History: Slavery in Guilford and the Guilford Free Library. Please click here for more details.
Witness to History: Slavery in Guilford seeks to uncover the history of slavery in our town, examine its legacy, and share what we learn.
