ABB Atlantic World Connections Event | Dr. Seth Rockman on Plantation Goods: A Material History of American Slavery 10/23

The industrializing North and the agricultural South—that’s how we have been taught to think about the United States in the early 19th century. But in doing so, we miss slavery’s long reach into small New England communities, just as we fail to see the role of Northern manufacturing in shaping the terrain of human bondage in the South. Join us Wednesday for an introduction to Dr. Rockman's forthcoming book.

Radcliffe Event | Black Lead: The Radical Black Roots of New England Liberalism on 10/16/24

Kerri K. Greenidge’s new book complicates the idea—propagated by white nationalists and accepted as fact by most liberal-leaning historians, scholars, and commentators—that New England is a predominantly white space in which African descended people and their communities have had little political effect. 

MHS Event | Racial Histories of Higher Education in New England: A Symposium Co-Hosted by The New England Quarterly on 9/27/24

As battles have raged over the meaning and fate of Confederate monuments across the south, colleges and universities in New England, generally regarded as liberal bastions, have also been engaged in a deep and consequential reckoning with aspects of their history and ongoing practices that rest on the legacies of slave trade and settler colonialism. This event will highlight the work of a diverse range of historians, as well as university archivists and museum professionals, discussing a range of issues from the Colonial period to the present that shape the industry, experience, and cultures of higher education.

Jesup Library Event | Eden’s Other Sons: MDI Seafarers, Shipbuilders, and the Slavery-Based Economies of the West Indies Trade with Anna Durand on 8/8/24

Mount Desert Island’s shipbuilders, sea captains, and sailors hold a special place in our collective memory. Hardworking and self-reliant, these men (and occasionally their wives) created a living from the sea. But historical records also show that trading Maine-made products like salt cod and barrel staves for rum, sugar, and molasses brought MDI seafarers into economic partnership with the slave-holding plantations of the West Indies.

In the news: A family discovery connected two strangers and opened their eyes to NH’s history of slavery

A few years ago, a collection of old family letters led to a discovery that connected two strangers across the country who learned their family histories were connected by slavery in New Hampshire: one, the descendant of a man who was enslaved in Portsmouth; the other, a descendant from the family that enslaved him.

This Saturday: Join ABB & Partners for The Walk to Unsettle Portland

On Saturday, June 22, Atlantic Black Box and The Third Place’s EcoBIPOC Network invite you to join The Walk to Unsettle Portland, a daylong collective practice—at once physical, emotional, creative, and intellectual—in unsettling our understanding of this place by surfacing the suppressed stories of those who walked here before us. Please join us for all or part of the day. 

ABB Event | Marking the Memoryscape on 5/31/24

Hosted by Atlantic Black Box in partnership with Maine Black Community Development, The Third Place, First Parish Portland, & WHERE2024 Partners A community conversation and luncheon to discuss launching a Middle Passage Ceremony and Port Marker Project for Maine, with MPCPMP founder Ann Chinn and award-winning civil rights historian and activist Danita Mason-Hogans. Friday, May … Continue reading ABB Event | Marking the Memoryscape on 5/31/24

ABB Event | Healing the Wounds of Slavery on 5/30

On the 25th anniversary of the Interfaith Pilgrimage of the Middle Passage, founders Nobuntu Ingrid Askew and Sister Clare Carter will join Crossing the Waters Co-Director Dr. Sonji Johnson-Anderson and moderator June Thornton-Marsh for a screening of the documentary Rise Up and Call Their Names, which chronicles the extraordinary thirteen-month journey the founders led in 1998-1999 through the eastern United States, the Caribbean, Brazil, West Africa, and South Africa to reverse the direction of the Middle Passage symbolically and geographically.