2017 Joint Harriet Tubman UGRR/NTF UGRR Conference is SOLD Out

May 18, 2017 10:00am -
May 21, 2017 05:00pm
(GMT-5)

Event Type: Partner Event
Category: Partner Event

Speaker Information
Due to overwhelming interest this conference is SOLD OUT!
On the Edge of Freedom:
Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad in the Borderlands
 
CONFERENCE SPEAKERS

Dates: May 18-21, 2017

Thursday, May 18

Workshops to be held at Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor Center

$25 for one; $35 for two (morning and afternoon) lunch included

 

10:00-12:00 pm

Workshop 1: Michelle Keita

An Interactive Workshop on Poetic Imagination and History

Workshop 2: Akua Anansesemfo

How to Interpret Slavery Workshop

 

1:00-3:00 pm                            

Workshop 3: Lacresha Berry

Tubman and the New Freedom

Workshop 4: Ally Spongr, Sara Capen, Marci Ross

Bridging Past to Present: The Borderland Community of Niagara

Or

11:00 am to 4:00 pm $40

Field Session/Tour: “In the Eastern Shore of Maryland, Dorchester County is where I was born.”

Tour Guides: Herschel Johnson, Kate Larson

 

Friday, May 19

9:00-9:15 am Opening Session (Dignitaries, Welcomes)

9:15-10:15 am Plenary Panel: WGN’s Underground

Creators Misha Green and Joe Pokaski; Harriet Tubman actress

 

10:30-12:00 pm

Concurrent Session 1: Creators of the Underground Railroad, 1835-1865

Moderator: Manisha Sinha

Panelists:

1. Graham Hodges, Harriet Tubman in Cape May, New Jersey: The Formative Years

2. Kate Masur, African American Spies in the Maryland-Virginia Borderland during the Civil War

3. Philip Troutman, Chronicles of Kidnapping in New York: Elizur Wright at the Borderlands of Slavery

Commentator: Chris Bonner

 

Concurrent Session 2: Hidden in the Shadows of Slavery: Material Culture and its Significance from the Nanny Jack & Company Archives

Moderator: Phillip Merill

Panelists:

1. Phillip Merrill, Printed Material, George Wright and Shokoe Bottom

2. Veronica Carr, Carte de Visite of Rachel Parker

3. Darlene A. Colόn, Cabinet Card of Harriet Cole Baker

 

Concurrent Session 3: “Eastern shore of Maryland Dorchester County is where I was born”: Harriet Tubman’s Maryland

Moderator: Maya Davis

Panelists:

1. H. Eliot Foulds and Jennifer Hanna, Piecing and Patchwork: Deciphering the

Jacob Jackson Landscape

2. Phillip Hesser, "Somewhat in the Condition of Freemen": Hiring Out and

Harriet Tubman's Borderlands of Freedom

3. Kate Larson, The Tangible and Intangible Borderland Geographies of Harriet

Tubman's Life on the Eastern Shore of Maryland

 

1:30 – 2:45 pm Networking/Discussion groups

• Modern, International Perspectives on Harriet Tubman

Lisbeth Gronlund and Kimerly Cornish

• Literature and the Underground Railroad

Barbara Lockhart and Jacqueline Wood

• Churches and Schools in the Freedom Struggle in Maryland

Kalila Barrett-Gaines and Franklin Robinson

• Freedom Seekers and Changes in Time and Space

Larry McClellan and Cheryl LaRoche

 

3:00 – 4:30 pm Concurrent session 4: Trade, Travel, and Commerce in the South-Central

Pennsylvania Underground Railroad

Moderator: Gail Tomlinson

Panelists:

1. Darlene Colon, Lydia Hamilton Smith

2. Kelly Summerford, William C. Goodridge

3. Phillip Merrill, Eyes are the Window to the Soul

 

Concurrent Session 5: History on the Borderlands: Harriet Tubman and

Popular Culture

Moderator: Deanda Johnson

Panelists:

4. Janell Hobson, Cultural Currency and the “Value” of Harriet Tubman

5. Kristen Oertel, Is Harriet Tubman Funny? History and Pop Culture Humor

6. Misha Green and Joe Pokaski

 

Concurrent Session 6: Forging Freedom on the Unwelcoming

Landscapes of Slavery’s Borderlands

Moderator: Rosemary Sadlier

Panelists:

1. Valerie Martin, Racial Slavery and Gendered Power in Early Quebec

Newspapers: Fugitive, Slave, and Slave Sale Notices in the St.

Lawrence Valley

2. Marcus P. Nevius, “By whom liberated or born free?”: Slave Hire and

Petit Marronage in Southside Virginia during the Antebellum Era

3. Gordon S. Barker, To Migrate or Sojourn North of Slavery?: Responding to Limited Black Freedom on Erie’s Faraway Shore

 

Saturday, May 20

8:30 - 10:00 am Concurrent Session 7: Freedom on My Mind: The Psychological Burden of Slavery

Moderator: Leigh Ryan

Panelists:

1. Kathryn Benjamin Golden, Forging Freedom: Flight, Violence,

Community, and Autonomy in the Great Dismal Swamp

2. Jeanne Pirtle, The Borderlands of Fear

3. Beryl Hunter, Constructing an Ideal: Resistance and Expediency in the

Lower Mississippi Delta

 

Concurrent Session 8: Enslavement and Freedom on International Borderlands

Moderator: Bronwen Sounders

Panelists:

1. Maria Diaz, The Promise of Freedom: The Complicated Sanctuary of

Samana, Dominican Republic

2. Lorraine McConaghy, Free Boy: Charles Mitchell and the Puget Sound

“Underground Railroad”

3. Meredith Hardy, Engaging the Present by Uncovering the Past—Community Archeology and the Legacy of Enslavement, Resistance, and Emancipation at Christiansted National Historic Site, St. Croix,Virgin Islands

 

Concurrent session 9: On the Edge of Freedom: African American Abolitionist Activists

Moderator: Nikki Taylor

Panelists:

1. Mary Liz Stewart, Stephen Myers on the Borderland of Activism

2. Dean Herrin, Crossing the Line to Freedom: The Story of Basil Dorsey

3. Michele Sullivan, African American Abolitionists in Southern Chester County, Pennsylvania

 

10:15 – 11:45 am Concurrent Session 10: The Promises and Risks of the Borderlands

Moderator: Shelley Stokes-Hammond

Panelists:

1. David McBride, Runaways, Contrabands or Both? Activities and

Implications of Contraband Camps and Settlements to the

Underground Railroad

2. Deanda Johnson, Slave Stampedes: A Borderland Phenomenon

3. Bridget Striker, Rising Sun and Rabbit Hash: A Tale of Two

Diametrically Opposed Sister Communities on the Ohio River

Borderlands

 

Concurrent Session 11: Liberation and the Law: Slavery and Freedom

Moderator: Kalila Barrett-Gaines

Panelists:

1. Gloria Ann Whittico, “A Mere Gratuity”: Legal Doctrine, Liberation,

and the Law of Manumission in Maryland

2. Margo Williams, Miles Lassiter: Straddling the Lines Between Slave

and Free, Black and White

3. Terrence Franklin, The Last Will of Lucy Sutton: One Family’s Legal

Odyssey from Slavery to Freedom

 

Concurrent Session 12: Kidnapped!

Moderator: Terry Neild

Panelists:

1. Iris Barnes, Sacrificing Margaret Morgan: Slavery and Freedom through the lens of Prigg v Pennsylvania, a Pivotal Reverse

Underground Railroad Event

2. Milt Diggins, Slave Catching and Kidnapping in the Borderlands

3. Robin Krawitz, The Remarkable Story of Aaron Cooper:

Understanding the Landscape of Kidnapping in Delaware through a

Suit for Freedom Filed in Natchez, Mississippi

 

12:00 – 1:00 pm Lunch

1:15 pm -2:15 pm Keynote 2 TBA

 

2:30 – 4:00 pm Concurrent Session 13: Movement to Freedom: Migration, Networking, and

Abolition

Moderator: Diane Miller

Panelists:

1. Deborah Lee, Underground Railroad Migration from the Middle Potomac

Region of Virginia and Maryland

2. Jesse Olsavasky, “We are all Bound Together”: Women, Vigilance

Committees, and the Making of Abolitionism without Borders, 1835-1859

3. Katherine Delavan, Ohio Borderlands: The Abolitionist Network from the

Ohio River to Lake Erie

 

Concurrent Session 14: The Promise of Canada?: The Reality of Freedom

Moderator: Richard Dana

Panelists:

1. Deidre McCorkindale, “It is not a British Feeling”: Anti-Black Racism in Kent County

2. Donna King, Freedom in America: Myth or Reality in Canada?

3. Veta Tucker, Blacks Navigating Freedom in the Detroit River Borderland

 

Concurrent session 15: In it Together: UGRR Networks at Work

Moderator: Deirdre Sinnott

Panelists:

1. To be determined

2. Don Papson, Tracking Harriet Tubman’s Network from Maryland to Canada West

3. Michael Boston, Platt H. Skinner, Abolitionist and Teacher of Deaf, Blind and Mute Black Children

 

Sunday, May 21

7:30-8:00 am      Conference tour registration and check-in

8:30 to 5:00 pm; $50

Field Session/Tour: “In the Eastern Shore of Maryland, Dorchester County is where I was born.”

Stops: Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Dover Green, Delaware Old State House

Other Sites: Faith Community United Methodist Church, Jacob and Hannah Leverton House, Linchester Mill, Jonestown, Samuel D. Burris marker