From Slave Ships to Black Lives Matter
December 5 & 6, 2019 | Brown University’s Peterutti Lounge, 75 Waterman Street, Providence, RI
The year 2019 marks 400 years since the first enslaved Africans were brought to what would become the colony of Virginia. Today, the echoes of racial slavery continue to shape the structures and dominant discourses of America. To acknowledge and reflect on this historical fact, The Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice is hosting a series of conversations on December 5 & 6, 2019 titled From Slave Ships to Black Lives Matter. These conversations around the major legacies of racial slavery, will explore the ways its reverberations continue to shape Black life in the Americas and around the world. This program will convene local, national and international scholars, activists, curators, and students to reflect on and engage in conversation about racial slavery and its impact on the present day. This event is made possible thanks to support from the Dean of the Faculty’s Office.
Thursday, December 5 – Keynote Lecture
5:30 PM: Dr. Cheryl Finley, Not Everybody’s Ancestors Came Over on the Mayflower
The slave ship icon was a galvanizing image for abolitionists in the 18th century. Today this important historic image continues to be evoked in moments of remembrance and resistance. Dr. Cheryl Finley, Associate Professor of Art History at Cornell University, will discuss her groundbreaking work on how visual representations of the slave ship have mapped modern understandings of Atlantic slavery, in particular within Black art and activism well into the twentieth century. She indexes the uses of the slave ship image within British and American abolitionist movements and illuminates their role in enacting Black resistance and identity. In her keynote address, Dr. Finely will provide a close analysis of contemporary Black art, displaying how it is intricately connected to iconic images of the slave ship.
RSVP here for the keynote lecture.
Friday, December 6 – Conversation Series from 9:00 am – 6:30 pm