The Witness Stones Project, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to restore the history and honor the humanity of the enslaved individuals who helped build our communities, today announced a new affiliation with St. Thomas’s Day School. The school in New Haven, Connecticut, will be using the Project’s curriculum and landscape markers to expand their teaching of the history of slavery in colonial Connecticut.
Students will examine primary source documents, such property, church, and vital records; wills and probate inventories; and census data, in order to understand the reality of slavery and to restore the memory of those individuals who were enslaved. They will learn how to document and describe the dehumanization and paternalism of slavery; the economic and legal framework that supported slavery; and, the agency, resistance, and contributions of the enslaved to our local and national history. Finally, these students will be inviting their communities to witness as they install memorial stones for individuals who were enslaved in their town.
St. Thomas’s Day School is a diverse co-educational independent day school serving children from kindergarten through grade six that is rooted in both character education and academic rigor. The school is a diverse community of children, teachers, parents and parishioners working together to foster learning in the context of faith and personal commitment. As a mission of Saint Thomas’s Episcopal Church, the Day School seeks to educate children broadly by cultivating intelligence while engaging heart and spirit. The School seeks to motivate children of diverse races, creeds, and backgrounds to become independent thinkers who appreciate, understand and serve others.
