Witness Stones Project, Inc.

Restoring History & Honoring Humanity

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A Witness to History: Brown Chairs Witness Stone’s Juneteenth at Hyland House

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Stephanie Little Brown at the Hyland House Museum. (Photo: Pam Johnson / The Courier)

By Pam Johnson on Zip06.com on June 12, 2019

GUILFORD — “When we did the first Juneteenth last year, the first question we asked the audience was, ‘How many people know what Juneteenth is?’” recalls Stephanie Little Brown. “Now this was in a crowd of about 80 adults. Probably eight hands went up. That’s through no fault of their own—they didn’t know what they didn’t know. But that just solidified, for me, how important it is to keep this going. Because if you don’t know your history, you are going to be doomed to repeat it.” Continue reading.

Remembrance Deferred

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By Yonatan Greenberg in the New Journal at Yale on February 16, 2018.

Guilford, a town of twenty-thousand half an hour north of New Haven, is a place that loves its past. There are three historical societies, and in the town center, by the chocolatier and tea shop, historical markers nearly outnumber street signs. A lone soldier stands at the center of the town green, looming over the dog walkers and families. Tall and imposing, with a musket by his side, he is the centerpiece of an 1877 memorial dedicated to the town’s Civil War veterans. Until recently, there was no such memorial for the town’s slaves, who are buried beneath him. In Connecticut, slavery dates back to the mid-1600s, and though it’s hard to know when it reached Guilford, by the late 1700s there were around fifty slaves living there. For all that Guilford loves to remember, until not long ago, their slaves had been forgotten. Continue reading.