Slavery and Freedom Speakers??? Series Begins July 19 with Author Joanne Pope Melish
Joanne Pope Melish??
LITTLE COMPTON ??? As part of a year-long project honoring the 200th anniversary of the end of slavery in Little Compton, the Little Compton Historical Society is hosting a speakers??? series featuring authors and historians with expertise on slavery and freedom in New England. The series is made possible by the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities and will run from July 19 to February, 2017. Each event is free and open to the public.
Joanne Pope Melish, a nationally-recognized authority on gradual emancipation in New England will lead off the series on Tuesday, July 19 at 7 PM at the Little Compton United Congregational Church on the Commons. Dr. Melish has entitled her talk The Worm in the Apple: Slavery, Emancipation, and Race in Rhode Island. She will discuss, among other topics, the amnesia that New England developed concerning its history of slave-holding and the emergence of racism as a means of control once slavery ended in the North.????
Dr. Melish is well-known as the author of ???Disowning Slavery: Gradual Emancipation and ???Race??? in New England, 1780-1860??? (Cornell University Press) a book that has been frequently used and discussed in university classrooms across the country since its publication in 1998. Dr. Melish is Associate Professor of History Emerita at the University of Kentucky, where she also directed the American Studies Program for several years. Dr. Melish received her B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. in American Civilization from Brown University and now resides in Rhode Island. In addition to Disowning Slavery, she has authored many essays on race and slavery in the early republic and on slavery in public history. Currently she is working on a book-length project tentatively entitled ???Gradual Alienation: How a Multiracial Laboring Class Formed, Persisted, and Became Invisible in the Post-Revolutionary North.???????????
Other talks in the series include:
Little Compton Historical Society Director, Marjory O???Toole, will present her talk ???Stories of Enslavement, Indenture and Freedom in Little Compton??? at the Society???s Annual Meeting at 7 PM on August 10 at the United Congregational Church. The presentation is based on her new book ???If Jane Should Want to Be Sold??? which uses hundreds of primary source documents to tell the stories of 250 enslaved and forcibly indentured people in Little Compton. The Annual Meeting is free and open to the public and will be preceded at 6:30 by a dedication of a monument to Little Compton???s enslaved people in the Old Burying Ground at the Commons. Refreshments and a book signing will follow the talk.
Ray Rickman will present ???Racism & It???s Roots in Slavery??? on Wednesday, August 3 at the Brownell Library. This talk is presented in partnership with the Brownell Library. Ray Rickman is a long-time advocate for equality and justice in Rhode Island and is the Founder of Stages of Freedom. Please note that this talk is at 6 PM.
Linford Fisher will place Little Compton???s history of slavery into the context of the wider Atlantic World with his presentation entitled ???New England Slavery in an Atlantic World??? on September 27 at the United Congregational Church at 7 PM. Dr. Fisher is the author of ???The Indian Great Awakening??? and co-author of ???Decoding Roger Williams??? and is currently writing a book that will be among the first to look at Native and African slavery simultaneously. Dr. Fisher is Associate Professor of History, at Brown University.
October???s presentation on present-day slavery is now being planned.
On Wednesday, November 2 at 7 PM, Keith Stokes will present ???American Irony???Slavery & Religious Slavery & Religious Freedom in Colonial Newport.??? Mr. Stokes is the co-founder of the 1696 Heritage Group Wednesday.??
On January 25, 2017 at 7PM, Elon Cook, Program Manager & Curator of the new Center for Reconciliation for the Episcopal Diocese of Rhode Island will speak on the exciting work of the Center for Reconciliation and how institutions and individuals can collaborate to increase public knowledge about slavery and Rhode Island’s role in the international slave trade.
On Wednesday, February 1, 2017 at 7 PM, Jeffrey Fortin will present ???Two Generations of Freedom: From Kofi to Paul Cuffe.??? Dr. Fortin is the Paul Cuffe Fellow at Mystic Seaport Museum and Assistant Professor of History at Emmanuel College. His book on the life of Paul Cuffe will be published soon.??
Last in the series on Thursday, February 23, 2017 at 7PM, Tony Connors, President of the Westport Historical Society, will present ???Westport???s Stories of Unfreedom??? based on his extensive research using Westport???s primary source documents.