This symposium will take a critical look at the true nature of the Underground Railroad movement as it wove its way through the different avenues of old established New England towns, including oral history, African American cultural landscapes, archaeology, geography, and material culture.
Thursday, May 10 • 7:00-8:00 PM • Concord Museum
Join writer and historian Jonathan Michael Square as he analyzes past images of free Africans Americans in New York City, Philadelphia, and Boston that appeared in the popular press.
Sat. May 19 • 1:00–2:15 PM • Brister's Hill
Meet at Hapgood Wright Town Forest Parking Lot
Our program will begin at Brister’s Hill, named after Brister Freeman, a formerly enslaved man who was the second person of African descent to own land in Concord.
At The Robbins House
Sat. May 19 • 2:45–4:00 PM
Our next stop, with time to travel, is the Robbins House, where Peter Robbins’ niece Ellen Garrison talks about being raised in 1820-30s Concord, and the antislavery activism that brought her from Boston to Rhode Island, Maryland, Virginia, Kansas, and California in pursuit of independence at a time of racial injustice.
