“Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America” Film Viewing & Discussion
Watch and then discuss Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America. Former ACLU Deputy Legal Director Jeffery Robinson’s…
Martin Luther King Day Civil Disobedience Walk
12-2 PM Meet in the Visitor Center Gallery at Walden Pond, 915 Walden St., Concord In honor of MLK Day,…
Support The Robbins House this #GivingTuesday
“For while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us.” – Amanda Gorman
Fall Visit Day
Saturday, October 15 10:00 a.m. Visit to learn more about the little known African American history of Concord and its…
Prof. Barbara McCaskill’s video summary of the plantation bell
Short video (11:28 mins.) discussion at request Maria Madison, founder and co-president of the Robbins House and Heller School Associate…
A Celebration of Brister Freeman at the Robbins House
Join this marking of the 200th anniversary of Brister Freeman’s Death Maria Madison Welcoming Remarks Keynote Address by Kenneth Reeves…
READING FREDERICK DOUGLASS TOGETHER
Join us for a public reading of his Fourth of July Address No Rain Date Sunday, July 3rd at 10 am…
Join us in Observing the Two-Hundredth Anniversary of Brister Freeman’s Death
Brister Freeman (1744-1822) was enslaved in Concord for the first 30 or so years of his life. Having gained his…
The Robbins House Talkback
The Umbrella is delighted to offer a special talkback following the May 29 Sunday matinee of The Colored Museum. May…
The Colored Museum
Running Friday and Saturday 8PM, and Sunday at 3PM from May 20-June 5 at The Umbrella Arts Center, George C.…
![Did you know that April is National Poetry Month? We have you covered with a little Robbins house trivia. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote a poem entitled Peter’s Field. Peter’s Field most likely referenced Peter Hutchinson, who was the last African American owner of The Robbins House. Peter purchased the home in 1852 and lived with his wife, Nancy, and several of their children in the home until 1868. Emerson described Peter’s farm, and by extension the original area of farmland attached to The Robbins House out in the Great Field like this:
KNOWS he who tills this lonely field
To reap its scanty corn,
What mystic fruit his acres yield
At midnight and at morn?]
That field by spirits bad and good,
By Hell and Heaven is haunted,
And every rood in the hemlock wood
I know is ground enchanted.
[In the long sunny afternoon
The plain was full of ghosts:
I wandered up,
I wandered down,
Beset by pensive hosts.
For in those lonely grounds the sun
Shines not as on the town,
In nearer arcs his journeys run,
And nearer stoops the moon.
There in a moment I have seen
The buried Past arise;
The fields of Thessaly grew green,
Old gods forsook the skies.
Happy Reading!](https://robbinshouse.org/wp-content/plugins/instagram-feed/img/placeholder.png)