Restore History, Educate, and Honor Humanity
By Patrick L. Sullivan in the TriCornerNews on May 5, 2021
NORFOLK — The life of James Mars was celebrated at the Norfolk Congregational Church on Sunday, May 2, with a ceremony marking the unveiling of a witness stone honoring Mars, the last slave bought or sold in Norfolk. Continue reading.
Salisbury School students honor James Mars’s legacy.
By Shaw Israel Izikson in the Winsted Phoenix on May 1, 2021.
NORFOLK — A ceremony was held for the unveiling of a Witness Stone for James Mars on Saturday, May 1. According to the Witness Stone project’s website at witnessstonesproject.org, a Witness Stone is a marker that recalls an enslaved individual at a site of significance. Continue reading.
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.
The Litchfield County Times on March 25, 2021
SALISBURY — Noble Horizons will host “The Life and Times of James Mars: The Story of a Connecticut Slave,” a virtual presentation, on April 1 at 7:15 p,m.
Registration for this free Zoom program is at noblehorizons.org.
Salisbury history teacher Rhonan Mokriski and his students will discuss their extensive research into the buried story of James Mars and other Black American slaves in Connecticut that have been hidden from history for over a century, an announcement said. As Mokriski explained, “We believe that efforts like this will help refute the impression that American history is inherently white.” Continue reading.
History Faculty Rhonan Mokriski ’90 and his students embarked on a project-based learning course this year entitled, “Searching for Slavery in Northwest Connecticut.” The goal was to engage students as public historians in authentic tasks to discover and share the local contributions people of color have made to the building of our communities.
To prepare, over the summer, Rhonan helped facilitate a Connecticut Association of Independent Schools webinar for educators on how to rethink lessons on racism and slavery. His program was featured in the New Haven Register, and enabled him to tee up a number of projects when the boys returned this fall. Continue reading.
A blog on the Atlantic Black Box Project, started on December 24, 2020.
History teacher Rhonan Mokriski and his students at the Salisbury School have been pursuing a project-based learning course in public history focused on uncovering the lives of free and enslaved African American families in northwestern Connecticut. Continue reading.
By Rhonan Mokriski on The Atlantic Black Box Project on August 1, 2020
I teach at an independent school in the sleepy Connecticut town of Salisbury (pop 3,598 in 2018). I have been living here for 24 years. My lens has been largely focused on world history – particularly China – so beyond the normal US survey idea of slavery, this is a topic that I knew relatively little about. Until really recently, I was always of a mind that slavery happened “down there.” Since I’ve been engaged in the work, I’ve been amazed at how steeped Connecticut generally, and the Upper Housatonic River Valley region specifically, is in this history. Continue reading.
The Atlantic Black Box Project is a public history project that empowers communities throughout New England to take up the critical work of researching and reckoning with our region’s complicity in the slave trade and our extensive involvement in the global economy of enslavement. This grassroots historical recovery movement is powered by citizen historians and guided by a broad coalition of scholars, community leaders, educators, archivists, museum professionals, antiracism activists, and artists.
