This symposium brings together archaeologists who study nineteenth-century free African American communities. Speakers will discuss how they have approached researching these communities, many of which were bulwarks in the abolition and early civil rights movements and places where residents formed positive social connections both within and across racial lines. Yet, these important communities have been largely left out of mainstream history. Presenters will explain what their research reveals about these communities and will collectively discuss what these communities, in turn, might reveal to us about living in our own divided time.
9 am
Peter N. Miller
Bard Graduate Center
Welcome
Meredith B. Linn
Bard Graduate Center
Introduction
9:20 am
Michael J. Gall
Richard Grubb and Associates, Inc.
Public and Private: Identity Construction and Free African American Life in Central Delaware, 1770s–1820s
9:40 am
Christopher N. Matthews
Montclair State University
A Creole Synthesis: Archaeology of the Mixed Heritage Silas Tobias Site in Setauket, New York
10 am
Christopher Lindner
Bard College
Germantown’s Parsonage: Centering Spirituality in a Nineteenth-Century African American Community
10:20 am
Q&A / Discussion
10:40 am
Coffee Break
11 am
Joan H. Geismar
Archaeological Consultant
Skunk Hollow and Weeksville: Comparing Two Nineteenth-Century African American Communities
11:20 am
Rebecca Yamin
Commonwealth Heritage Group, Inc.
The Lives and Times of Josiah and Joshua Eddy: Barbers and AME Church Ministers in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Philadelphia
11:40 am
Meredith B. Linn
Bard Graduate Center
Nan A. Rothschild
Barnard College and Columbia University
Diana diZerega Wall
City College and the City University of New York
Seneca Village: New Insights about a Forgotten Nineteenth-Century African American Community
12 pm
Q&A / Discussion
12:20 pm
Alexandra Jones
Archaeology in the Community
Response
12:40 pm
Lunch Break
1:40 pm
Nedra K. Lee
University of Massachusetts Boston
Hiding in Plain Sight: Critical Race Theory and the Use of Space at the Ransom and Sarah Williams Farmstead, Manchaca, Texas
2 pm
Christopher Fennell
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Resilience and Racism in a Nineteenth-Century American Heartland: New Philadelphia and the Vagaries of Prejudice
2:20 pm
Christopher P. Barton
Francis Marion University
“Stretching the Soup with a Little Water”: Race, Class, and Improvisation at the Black Community of Timbuctoo, New Jersey
2:40 pm
Q&A / Discussion
3 pm
Coffee Break
3:20 pm
Allison McGovern
VHB Engineering, Surveying, Landscape Architecture, and Geology, PC
“We Know Who We Are”: The Politics of Heritage and Preservation in East Hampton’s “Historically Black” Communities
3:40 pm
Paul R. Mullins
Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
Civility and Citizenship: Narrating Free Black Heritage and Materiality
4 pm
Matthew M. Palus
The Ottery Group and the University of Maryland, College Park
Cultural Resource Management Perspectives on African American Struggle with Heritage in Metropolitan Washington, DC
4:20 pm
Q&A / Discussion
4:40 pm
Whitney Battle-Baptiste
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Response
5 pm
Reception
