PhD candidate Margot Minardi discusses Boston abolitionist activity, particularly its use of Revolutionary War resonances in its propaganda and oratory. The presentation includes slides.
Audio and video options are available.
Professor David W. Blight examines the character and legacy of fervent abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison (1805-1879). Blight looks at his private character and his public image, and how his ideals and technique might be received, used, and remembered today.
Audio and video options are available.
Julie Winch discusses the highly successful African-American Remond family and their business of catering lavish parties in Boston and Newport in the 1800s. Winch focuses on the Remonds as free African Americans and supporters of abolitionism during the era of slavery.
This lecture discusses African-American social organization and antislavery activism in Antebellum Boston.
Professor Gary Nash discusses the conditions of the fifth of the population who were African American during the Revolutionary War and in its aftermath. Nash explores the escape of slaves to join the British and the conditions African Americans faced in the colonies after the war. His presentation includes slides.
Audio and video options are available.
Professor and author Simon Schama discusses the escape of many slaves to join the British during the Revolutionary War, in response to offers of freedom for service to Britain. He continues on to look at what happened to these men and women after Britain's defeat.
Biographer and history professor James O'Toole describes the lives of the Healy brothers, children of a multiracial slave couple, in mid-19th-century East Coast society. Three of the brothers successfully passed as white and gained prominent social positions: one as a a bishop; one as Georgetown University's president; and one as a priest, rector, and seminary director.
A series of speakers, primarily professors, open a symposium celebrating the history and impact of African-American spirituals. This presentation continues from the presentation "Celebration of Negro Spirituals, Part One."
A series of speakers, primarily professors, open a symposium celebrating the history and impact of African-American spirituals.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author James M. McPherson examines the contemporary popular perspectives on the Civil War, both of Northerners and Southerners, civilians and soldiers. McPherson uses the popular music of the period as a framework for discussing the changing views, and focuses on the growing desire to end the war and the increasing sense of hopelessness that it would ever end.
An audio version can be downloaded.