With Dr. Carol Gardiner and respondent Bob Greene A Speaker Series event Hosted by Atlantic Black Box Wednesday, May 28, 2025 6:00 pm ET on zoom REGISTER HERE Next Wednesday, Atlantic Black Box is honored to host a presentation by Dr. Carol Gardner that explores how the experiences of two 19th-century Portland families—one Black and one … Continue reading ABB Event | Divided North: Abolition, Slavery, and the Slave Trade in Maine on 5/28/25
Announcing Munson Institute Summer Courses at Mystic Seaport Museum
During the summer of 2025, the Munson Institute in Mystic, CT will offer two concurrent courses focused on the American maritime experience. Applications due March 14.
TONIGHT! ABB Speaker Series Event | An Uneasy Alliance: Free African Americans & the Colonization Movement to Liberia on 2/19
Tonight at 5 pm ET, Atlantic Black Box is honored to host Dr. Ousmane Power-Greene, Chair of Africana Studies and Professor of History at Clark University, for a talk on Free African Americans and the Colonization Movement to Liberia in the 19th-century.
Maine Conservation Voters Event | The Malaga Ship: Maine, the Global Slave Trade, and Healing Through Artistic Reclamations on 2/7
In this session, storyteller Antonio Rocha will be joined by Dr. Kate McMahon, Historian of Global Slavery at the Smithsonian African-American History Museum. Together, they will tell the story of the Malaga and reflect on the ways in which historians and artists can collaborate to create new forms of healing and justice through artistic creation.
Maine Historical Society Event | Black Salts: Black sailors in Maine and New England on 2/13
Cushing’s Point Museum director Seth Goldstein will discuss the fundamental role of African heritage sailors in regional history and will examine why the jobs of mariners and shore-related occupations such as longshoremen were important for individuals of African heritage.
Trent House Event | Escaping Enslavement by Water: The Other Underground Railroad on 2/9
Hosted by William Trent House Museum February 9, 2025 at 2:00 p.m. ETOnline Learn More & Access zoom link The Trent House Association hosts a talk by Dr. Timothy Walker, professor of history at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, based on his edited volume, Sailing to Freedom: Maritime Dimensions of the Underground Railroad. Sailing to Freedom highlights little-known … Continue reading Trent House Event | Escaping Enslavement by Water: The Other Underground Railroad on 2/9
Simmons Center Event @ Brown | A More Just Curriculum Launch on 1/29
Join Brown's Simmons Center team in launching a curriculum designed to provide K–12 teachers and students with resources that foreground the histories and experiences of the Dawnland’s (New England’s) Indigenous and African-descended communities.
MHS Event | Boston to Guangzhou and Back: Perspectives and Legacy of the U.S.-China Trade, 1790-1850s on 2/18/25
This workshop explores the history of China-U.S. trade through a local lens, starting with the Early U.S. Republic and running through the Opium Wars.
ABB/WHERE Event: The Descendants Walk in York on 11/16/24
This Saturday, join us in experiencing the town of York in a new and powerful way—as the Descendants all of us are. We'll warm up over homemade soup and bread and watch a rending performance by Antonio Rocha that will open a discussion about what happened here, what each of us carries in our lineages, and what it all might mean for us today.
Book Release | In Slavery’s Wake: Making Black Freedom in the World
This powerful collection of essays brought to life with more than 150 illustrations investigates the intertwined legacies of slavery, freedom, and capitalism. In Slavery’s Wake frames the history of slavery in a global context to show how it created systems of oppression that continue to shape the world today.
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.
Truro Event | What Happened Here? Surfacing Cape Cod’s Connections to Slavery and Colonization with Meadow Dibble on 8/21
This Wednesday, Meadow Dibble will offer an overview of Cape Cod's entanglements in the global economy of enslavement at Truro's Highland House Museum.
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.
Revolutionary Spaces Events: Daily Tour on Slavery and Resistance in Colonial Massachusetts
Uncover the realities of slavery and learn how enslaved people resisted oppressors at our newest tour, Slavery & Resistance in Colonial Massachusetts. Hear the compelling stories of figures like Scipio Gunney, Phillis Wheatley, and Belinda Sutton on this engaging 60-minute experience.
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 | Teaching Hard History: Past, Present, and Future on 6/13
An educator workshop and teacher-appreciation dinner with Dr. Hasan Kwame Jeffries of The Ohio State University, Dr. Kate Shuster of the Hard History Project, and longtime education leader Maureen Costello.
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
Partnership of Historic Bostons Event | Unseen New England: Re-envisioning Black Presence in Early American Art on 5/15/24
American Folk Art Museum curator Emelie Gevalt explores the way that early New England art portrayed - or erased - its Black community.
Black Heritage Trail of NH Event | Discovery of Our Interconnected Legacies in Portsmouth: New Hampshire’s Slavery History on 5/18/24
Hosted by the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire and the Moffatt-Ladd House May 18, 2024 at 10:30 AM Portsmouth Public LIbrary Register for in-person event Register for virtual event Prince Whipple, a young native of Africa, was transported during the Atlantic slave trade to America, and enslaved by William Whipple, a signer of the … Continue reading Black Heritage Trail of NH Event | Discovery of Our Interconnected Legacies in Portsmouth: New Hampshire’s Slavery History on 5/18/24
Two in-person events on Maine’s Black history May 4 hosted by Biddeford Saco SURJ & Westbrook Juneteenth Planning Committee
Biddeford Saco Black History Walking Tour Standing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) MAY 4, 2024 at 10:00 AM Led by: Delilah PouporeOrganization: Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ)Duration: One hourLocation: 138 Main Street, Saco, Maine 04072Learn more Embark on a journey through Biddeford and Saco’s rich yet often overlooked Black history with our engaging Black History Walking Tour. Led … Continue reading Two in-person events on Maine’s Black history May 4 hosted by Biddeford Saco SURJ & Westbrook Juneteenth Planning Committee