News, press releases, exhibits, meetings, and organizational activities.
Frank C. Munson Institute
Our friends at the Frank C. Munson Institute at Mystic Seaport Museum invite you to participate in the multi-institutional Reimagining New England Histories: Historical Injustice, Sovereignty and Freedom project funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (with Brown Univ. and Williams College). Classes will be held at Mystic Seaport Museum this summer, and include a $2,000 stipend, plus museum-owned housing and book purchases. Details here.
Newport Middle Passage Project announces:
Summer 2021 Speaker Series
This is the third year of the Newport Middle Passage Speaker Series, this summer fielding six speakers on topics of interest to general audiences.
The speaker series kicks off on Wed, June 16, 2021, at 6:30 PM with a free virtual lecture led by Fred Zilian, Adjunct Professor of History and Politics at Salve Regina University. For more information or to register for the June 16 event, click here.
The lecture, “Juneteenth Celebration Virtual Lecture: African American Un-Freedom, 1877 – 1960’s”, will address the period from the end of Reconstruction to the end of the 1960s, a period of “un-freedom” and inequality for African Americans. “Juneteenth” is a holiday celebrating the emancipation in 1865 of those who had been enslaved in the United States. It is also known as Emancipation Day, Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, or Liberation Day.
CCRI Presents Scipio lecture by Victoria Johnson
https://www.facebook.com/events/184038972833840/
The Newport Middle Passage Port Marker Project through education and in alliance with local organizations, continues an on-going series of educational assemblies with speakers who discuss the history and impact of slavery in our area and the nation.
In the year 2020, several lecture series will be told by historians, committee members and other community individuals. On February 12th at CCRI-Newport at 11:30am, a power point lecture will be presented to the community depicting a story of a young boy captured from his village, crossed the Middle Passage and arrived in Newport to be sold. This lecture was previously told by Victoria Johnson in Portsmouth, RI and but will be repeated in Newport, RI where the memorial will be built to honor and remember those ancestors who perished during the journey and to acknowledge the history of Africans not only in Newport but in the USA.
https://shar.es/a3QmyM
Summer 2018 Lecture Series (July 19, 2018)
BankNewport Announces Community Grant to Newport Middle Passage Project (February 24, 2018)
NEWPORT – BankNewport has announced an award of $5,000 to Newport Middle Passage Port Marker Project for 2017. Each year, BankNewport’s community outreach program strives to strengthen and enrich lives and communities throughout Rhode Island.
In 2017, BankNewport awarded more than $568,000 in grants, sponsorships and donations to a range of nonprofits serving various sectors of the state, including basic human needs, children and families, healthy lives, education success, environment, arts and culture, housing and economic security. Financial education and community projects by BankNewport employees totaled over 8,000 hours.
Grants awarded to Newport County organizations in 2017 by the board of directors of BankNewport include:
◆ Newport Middle Passage Port Marker Project received $5,000 to fund public relations, research and a community lecture series.
“Exploring the Business of Selling Enslaved People” (February 7, 2018)
Historical Interpreter Christine Mitchell, guest of Newport Middle Passage Project, visited Roger Williams High School to share her insights and experience about the business of slavery in Charleston, South Carolina. She shared original documents gathered over her years interpreting at the Old Slave Mart Museum in Charleston, including bills of sale, slave advertisements, insurance and “work house” punishment slips.
“Visible Cloth, Invisible Bodies” (February 3, 2018)
Newport Middle Passage Project participated in the “Visible Cloth, Invisible Bodies” exhibit and lectures at URI Providence Campus. One of our members, Clinton Gardiner, discovered his great-grandfather’s name posted on the wall amongst the list of African-American and Native American sailors from Rhode Island of the 19th century.
Read more on Facebook.
Enslavement of Indians in Rhode Island (November 14, 2017)
NAACP Honors for Community Achievement (November 11, 2017)
Victoria Johnson, of Newport, received the Education Award for her lifelong career as a teacher, coach and administrator. She was Rhode Island’s first African-American woman to be principal of a secondary school. She’s also dedicated her time and talents to a wide range of community organizations. Most recently, Johnson launched the “Newport Middle Passage Port Marker Project” to tell the stories of the enslaved Africans who survived the transatlantic journey and were brought to Newport 350 years ago.
News Coverage – Makonde Exhibit (August 13, 2017)
Makonde Sculpture Exhibit (August 14, 2017)
At Newport Historical Society, Aug. 14, 15 and 16 – exhibition of extensive collection of original Makonde sculpture from Mozambique, courtesy of Dr. Cynthia Hamilton, Professor Emeritus of University of Rhode Island.
History of Newport Middle Passage, and city council’s support of memorializing the Newport slave trade (June 22, 2017)
National coverage of approval of memorial monument – (June 16, 2017):
Newport City Council approves future monument for Newport Middle Passage Port Marker Committee (June 15, 2017).
And reported in the Providence Journal:
Newport Middle Passage contributes to exhibit at University of Rhode Island: Invisible Bodies, Disposable Cloth (Feb 9, 2017):
Coverage of Newport Middle Passage Project’s community-organizing efforts to memorialize Newport’s survivors of the slave trade (Nov. 8, 2016):
Founding meeting of the Newport middle Passage Port Marker Project at the Redwood Library, Newport (Nov. 2, 2016):
Listen to the newscast on Rhode Island Public Radio (4-Oct-2016):
Coverage or RI Middle Passage Project on National Public Radio (Apr. 6, 2016):
Initial organizing meeting of Rhode Island Middle Passage Project, Bristol, RI (Oct 25, 2015):
