Atlantic World Connections ONLINE Speaker Series, presented by Atlantic Black Box
Featuring Dr. Akeia de Barros Gomes, Director of the Center for Black History at the Newport Historical Society
Wednesday, January 22 from 6:00 – 7:00 pm ET
Online
Dr. de Barros Gomes will discuss how global travel, archaeological work, and anthropological fieldwork helped to shape her history-making as a scholar and museum professional. We will specifically discuss her work as Lead Curator on the exhibition Entwined: Freedom, Sovereignty, and the Sea and her new role as the Director for the Center for Black History at the Wanton-Lyman-Hazard House/Newport Historical Society. Her work and scholarship have very much been a “return home.”
Dr. Akeia de Barros Gomes is the Director of the Center for Black History at the Newport Historical Society and is a Visiting Scholar and Adjunct Lecturer at Brown University’s Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice. Akeia leads the development and implementation of the Center for Black History at the Wanton-Lyman-Hazard House, which will open as an exhibition space, educational and community programming space and a space for scholarship in 2026.
She was lead curator for the 2024 Mystic Seaport Museum exhibition, Entwined: Freedom, Sovereignty and the Sea a multi-year Mellon Foundation-funded project that recovers the history of the founding and development of the Dawnland (New England) through Dawnland Indigenous, African, and African-descended maritime narratives. Akeia taught as professor of American Studies and Professor of Psychology and Human Development at Wheelock College from 2008 to 2017. She received her BA in anthropology/archaeology at Salve Regina University and her MA and PhD in anthropology/archaeology at the University of Connecticut.
