Until very recently, racial slurs remained inscribed on Maine’s landscapes and racist mascots were cherished by schools and their communities. How did these symbols that disparage and dehumanize Black and Indigenous people come to be? Why have they persisted for so long? And what harmful vestiges remain still today?
The Logbooks
Lincoln County Historical Association Event | Malaga Island with Kate McBrien on 2/2/23
Maine State Archivist Kate McBrien explores the history of racism and eugenics behind the fate of a community that lived on Malaga Island, off the coast of Phippsburg, Maine, in the late 1800s.
Maine Conservation Voters Event | Captain Frederick Drinkwater: A Maine Slave Ship Captain, with Dr. Kate McMahon on 2/3/23
Hosted by Maine Conservation Voters Friday, February 3, 2023 at 12:00 pm Register here Captain Frederick Drinkwater was born in Yarmouth, Maine, and rose from relative obscurity to become one of the most notorious slave ship captains of the 1850s and early 1860s. This talk will discuss Maine and the slave trade to Cuba in … Continue reading Maine Conservation Voters Event | Captain Frederick Drinkwater: A Maine Slave Ship Captain, with Dr. Kate McMahon on 2/3/23
Tonight! Atlantic Black Box presents: The Saga of James A. Butler told by his descendant, Charles Shaw, on 1/26/23
Charles Shaw shares the compelling story of James A. Butler, his maternal great, great grandfather who migrated as a young man from the Province of Nova Scotia to Boston in the mid-19th century in search of opportunity. A boat builder by trade and a likely descendant of the Black loyalist evacuation of New York in 1783, Butler arrived in the U.S. with youthful confidence and verve, only to encounter the dark side of the pursuit for the American dream.
Maine Historical Society Event | The Unwilling Architects Initiative: Interpreting Untold Stories in a Small Historic House Museum on 1/26/23
An in-person talk about who built Victoria Mansion Hosted by Maine Historical Society Thursday, January 26, 6:00 – 7:00 pmSNOW DATE: Thursday, February 2 at 6:00 pm Location: MHS Shettleworth Lecture Hall Register here Built between 1858-1860, Victoria Mansion is a National Historic Landmark in Portland, Maine, known widely for its architecture and stunning intact … Continue reading Maine Historical Society Event | The Unwilling Architects Initiative: Interpreting Untold Stories in a Small Historic House Museum on 1/26/23
Atlantic Black Box presents What Happened Here: The Saga of James A. Butler told by his descendant, Charles Shaw, on 1/26/23
Charles Shaw shares the compelling story of James A. Butler, his maternal great, great grandfather who migrated as a young man from the Province of Nova Scotia to Boston in the mid-19th century in search of opportunity. A boat builder by trade and a likely descendant of the Black loyalist evacuation of New York in 1783, Butler arrived in the U.S. with youthful confidence and verve, only to encounter the dark side of the pursuit for the American dream.
Museum of Old Newbury Event | Sailing to Freedom: Maritime Dimensions of the Underground Railroad on 2/24/23
Hosted by the Museum of Old Newbury Friday, February 24, 2023 from 7:00 PM 8:30 PM Register here Sailing to Freedom will highlight little-known stories and describe the less-understood maritime side of the Underground Railroad, including the impact of African Americans’ paid and unpaid waterfront labor. This talk will reconsider and contextualize how escapes were … Continue reading Museum of Old Newbury Event | Sailing to Freedom: Maritime Dimensions of the Underground Railroad on 2/24/23
Event | BHTNH presents “Before European Contact”: Changing the Ways We Present Our History on 2/5/23
Hosted by the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire, this conversation aims to foreground the silenced stories of Indigenous and African experiences on this continent before European contact.
Event | Working While Black: Race, Labor, and Community in Black Bangor, 1880-1950 with Dr. Maureen Elgersman Lee on 2/22/23
Reaching its peak between the late 1800s and World War II, Bangor’s African American community experienced what is simultaneously a microcosm of America’s history and a very special local history within Maine.
Opportunity | Permanent Commission on the Status of Racial, Indigenous, and Tribal Populations Seeks Executive Director
The Permanent Commission is an independent entity with a mission to work toward ending structural racism so all communities can thrive. For too long, Maine and the United States have allowed the institutions and policies that drive structural racism to continue. These structures hurt all of us, including rural Mainers, Black and African American people, … Continue reading Opportunity | Permanent Commission on the Status of Racial, Indigenous, and Tribal Populations Seeks Executive Director
Event | Caesar Freeman: An 18th-century Free Black Man in Bowdoin, Maine on 2/23/23
Jym St. Pierre will present his research on Caesar Freeman, one of the first settlers of the Town of Bowdoin, Maine and a free Black man.
Event | Freedom’s Cause: Historical Black Communities and George Washington’s Cambridge Camp on 2/8/23
Hosted by Wellesley Free Library Wednesday, February 8, 2023 from 7:00pm - 8:00pm Register here From 1775-1776, 105 Brattle Street (today Longfellow House-Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site) became General George Washington’s first major headquarters of the Revolution. While Washington’s time at Cambridge Headquarters is well-documented, this site also provides a lens into intersections of Black … Continue reading Event | Freedom’s Cause: Historical Black Communities and George Washington’s Cambridge Camp on 2/8/23
Event | Communities of Practice: Interpreting Histories of Enslavement and Freedom on 1/31/23
Hosted by New England Museum Association January 31, 2023Noon - 1:00 pm (Virtual) Communities of Practice: Interpreting Histories of Enslavement and Freedom Historic sites across New England are currently embarking on a process of reinterpreting their museums' role in the institution of slavery (direct or indirect), as well as the discourse around the history of … Continue reading Event | Communities of Practice: Interpreting Histories of Enslavement and Freedom on 1/31/23
Event | A Window on the Past – West Indies trade is subject of historical society lecture on 1/18/23
Hosted by the South Portland Historical Society With Seth Goldstein Wednesday, Jan. 18th, at 6:30 p.m.South Portland Community Center “Regardless of what was to be a Maine boy’s occupation or profession, an indispensable part of his upbringing was a voyage or two in the West India trade. In the days when the privateers of France … Continue reading Event | A Window on the Past – West Indies trade is subject of historical society lecture on 1/18/23
Event | No Right to an Honest Living: The Struggles of Boston’s Black Workers in the Civil War Era with Jacqueline Jones on 1/18/23
Before, during, and after the Civil War, white abolitionists and Republicans refused to secure equal employment opportunity for Black Bostonians, condemning many of them to poverty. Still, Jacqueline Jones finds, some Black entrepreneurs created their own jobs and forged their own career paths.
Fellowship | Applications for 2023-2024 Lapidus Center Fellowships Due 1/9/23
By Lapidus Center at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture If you are a researcher studying the slave trade, slavery, and anti-slavery in the Atlantic World, consider applying to the short and long-term fellowships at the Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery at the Schomburg Center. Fellows receive access to … Continue reading Fellowship | Applications for 2023-2024 Lapidus Center Fellowships Due 1/9/23
Resource | Report from the Equal Justice Initiative: American port cities from New England to New Orleans were shaped by the Transatlantic Slave Trade
The Equal Justice Initiative's new report examines the economic legacy of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, which created generational wealth for Europeans and white Americans and introduced a racial hierarchy that continues to haunt our nation. Introduction, by Bryan Stevenson The enslavement of human beings occupies a painful and tragic space in world history. Denying a … Continue reading Resource | Report from the Equal Justice Initiative: American port cities from New England to New Orleans were shaped by the Transatlantic Slave Trade
Event | Bryan Stevenson on the History of Racial Terror in the United States on 12/12/22
Hosted by Zinn Education Project Monday, December 12, 2022 • 7:00 pm ET Register here On Monday, December 12, 2022, author, lawyer, and professor Bryan Stevenson will discuss his book Just Mercy and the history of racial terror in the United States. This session is part of the Zinn Education Project’s Teach the Black Freedom Struggle online people’s history series.Under Stevenson’s leadership, the Equal … Continue reading Event | Bryan Stevenson on the History of Racial Terror in the United States on 12/12/22
Event | The Grimkes: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family with Pr. Kerri Greenidge
Sarah and Angelina Grimke are revered figures in American history, famous for rejecting their privileged lives on a plantation in South Carolina to become firebrand activists in the North. Yet retellings of their epic story have long obscured their Black relatives.
Event | Contradictory Place: Cotton Mills Alongside Anti-Slavery Efforts in Lowell MA on 12/7/22
From the 1830s through the Civil War, many Lowellians from all walks of life engaged in concerted efforts to block the expansion of slavery and helped freedom seekers even when this meant defying federal law. “A Contradictory Place” offers viewers a way to learn about an important, but too often neglected, chapter of our history.