In this newsletter:
- GLC Upcoming Events
- TODAY! “Charleston and its Aftermath: History, Symbols, Policy” A Panel with Edward Ball, Yale; Jelani Cobb, University of Connecticut; Glenda Gilmore, Yale; Jonathan Holloway, Yale; Vesla Weaver, Yale; Moderated by David Blight, Yale (9/21)
2. GLC 17th Annual International Conference
- Antislavery Republics: The Politics of Abolition in the Spanish Atlantic
3. Programs and Events
- Historians Against Slavery Conference, Cincinnati, OH, September 24-26
- Truth: Women, Creativity, and Memory of Slavery
4. In the News
- American Slavery, Reinvented
- Discover Richmond: Richmond Slave Trail
GLC Upcoming Events
TODAY! Monday, September 21, 2015. 4:30 PM
“Charleston and its Aftermath: History, Symbols, Policy”
Edward Ball, Yale; Jelani Cobb, University of Connecticut; Glenda Gilmore, Yale; Jonathan Holloway, Yale; Vesla Weaver, Yale; Moderated by David Blight, Yale
Location: W. L. Harkness Hall (100 Wall Street), Sudler Recital Hall (Second Floor)
The tragic murders of nine African American people in the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC sparked outrage and the eventual removal of the Confederate flag from statehouse grounds in South Carolina. Three months later, this distinguished panel reflects on the murders, the push to remove symbols of the Confederacy and racism across the South and the nation, and what has and hasn’t changed since June.
GLC 17th Annual International Conference
The Gilder Lehrman Center’s 17th Annual International Conference
October 30-31, 2015
Luce Hall Auditorium
34 Hillhouse Avenue
New Haven, CT
Why and how did slavery end when it did in Spanish America? Slavery expanded in leaps and bounds in Brazil, Cuba, and the United States during the same decades that the new republics of mainland Spanish America professed a commitment to the abolition of slavery and instituted gradual antislavery laws. In large part this was a result of the free and enslaved Africans’ involvement in the independence wars in places such as Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela. This conference will focus on the history of slavery and anti-slavery in the nineteenth century Spanish Atlantic world and probe such hemispheric contrasts and divergences by moving beyond a national or imperial focus that has characterized abolitionist studies. Instead, it will trace the connections of mainland Spanish America with Brazil, Africa, Haiti, Britain, the Spanish Caribbean, and the United States during the nineteenth century. Speakers include:
- Carlos Aguirre, University of Oregon
- George Reid Andrews, University of Pittsburgh
- Ana Lucia Araujo, Howard University
- Alice Baumgartner, Yale University
- Herman Bennett, City University of New York
- Peter Blanchard, University of Toronto
- David W. Blight, Yale University
- Alex Borucki, University of California-Irvine
- Marcela Echeverri, Yale University
- Anne Eller, Yale University
- Roquinaldo Ferreira, Brown University
- Ada Ferrer, New York University
- Alejandro Gomez, Université de Lille
- John Harris, Johns Hopkins University
- Bayo Holsey, Rutgers University
- Richard Huzzey, University of Liverpool
- Rafael Marquese, University of São Paulo
- Edward Rugemer, Yale University
- Dale Tomich, University of Binghamton
- Justin Wolfe, Tulane University
Programs and Events
This conference is designed to facilitate dialogue, scholarship and action in an effort to end modern-day slavery. Survivors, activists, scholars and educators from around the world will convene at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center to illuminate vital themes that can inform today’s abolition and educational movements. The conference theme is “Using History to Make Slavery History.” Registration for the conference is free and is available online at the link below. Conference attendees are responsible for transportation, lodging and meals. There is an optional keynote luncheon ticket available for purchase on Friday, September 25. To register for the conference and/or luncheon, go to: https://tickets.cincymuseum.org/FreedomCenter/ItemList.aspx?node_id=1503876
This conference brings together a distinguished body of scholars and activists from North America, Europe and Africa. The plenary and concurrent panels feature discussions offering numerous practical examples of how history might be used to inform modern abolition efforts, and aim to enable conversations between scholars, activists, educators, and other interested people. Keynote speakers include Clarence G. Newsome, PhD, president of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center; Edward E. Baptist of Cornell University; and Rachel Moran, a survivor of contemporary slavery, anti-slavery activist, and author of Paid For. For the full program, see http://www.historiansagainstslavery.org/main/2015-conference/
Monday, October 5, 2015
6:00pm – 8:00pm | Admission: FREE
Fordham School of Law | 150 West 62nd Street (Between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues) | Costantino Room, 2nd Floor | New York, NY 10023
Please join the United Nations Remember Slavery Programme and Fordham University for a moderated discussion with noted scholars and artists.
As shown by the likes of Phillis Wheatley, Celia Cruz, Nina Simone, Kara Walker, Toni Morrison, and the makers of patch quilts, women of the African diaspora have written, painted, sculpted, and lifted their songs to lament pain, express sorrow, and rejoice over their freedom from bondage.
This moderated discussion will explore the many ways enslaved women throughout the African diaspora used their artistic voice to express themselves, endure trials, and survive—and to liberate both themselves and their people. We will also examine what these incredible women can teach the contemporary world about the experiences of slavery and the emancipating power of creativity.
Department of African & African American Studies
School of Professional and Continuing Studies
Department of History
United Nations Sponsor:
United Nations Department of Public Information
For more information, contact Latin American and Latino Studies Institute at 212-635-6365 or firstname.lastname@example.org.
More information and RSVP: http://www.alumni.fordham.edu/calendar/detail.aspx?ID=4252
In the News
American Slavery, Reinvented
The Thirteenth Amendment forbade slavery and involuntary servitude, “except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.”
September 21, 2015
Crops stretch to the horizon. Black bodies pepper the landscape, hunched over as they work the fields. Officers on horseback, armed, oversee the workers.
To the untrained eye, the scenes in Angola for Life: Rehabilitation and Reform Inside the Louisiana State Penitentiary, an Atlantic documentary filmed on an old Southern slave-plantation-turned-prison, could have been shot 150 years ago. The imagery haunts, and the stench of slavery and racial oppression lingers through the 13 minutes of footage.
Posted: Sunday, September 20, 2015 2:30 pm
By Michael Paul Williams
Richmond is slowly coming to terms with its past as a major slave-trading market, and that is happening largely because of the creation of the Richmond Slave Trail, a self-guided walking tour.
The trail — 17 marked sites extending from the south bank of the James River into the heart of downtown — chronicles the trade of enslaved Africans to Virginia until 1775, and their shipment away from Virginia to other points in the Americas until emancipation in 1865.