Teaching about Slavery in New England Is Topic of Conference at Yale

The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale University will host an educational conference on the subject of Slavery and Freedom in New England, July 25 -July 28, 2002.

The event is the first national meeting of the United States Partners of the UNESCO Transatlantic Slave Trade (TST) Education Project, a program dedicated to developing methods and materials to teach the history of slavery to students in elementary through high school.

Highlights of the conference include a keynote address by author David Blight, a recipient of the Douglass Prize for his book “Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory.” This talk is open to the public. Other featured speakers are historians James O. Horton and Stanley Engerman. Also participating will be Frank Garrison, a direct descendant of abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, and author Pearl Duncan, who has written about her own experience tracing her family history to Ghana and Jamaica through DNA typing.

The historian Garry Nash has observed, “Six out of every seven persons who crossed the Atlantic to take up life in the Americas in the 300 years before the American Revolution were enslaved Africans.”

Despite the fact that the slave trade and its legacy are central to the American experience, the subject has long been omitted from standard school curricula. Introducing the transatlantic slave trade to the classroom is a challenge, and innovative textbooks and course material emphasizing this formative dimension of American life are critically needed.

The conference marks the first full assembly of the five U.S. sponsor-institutions-the College of Charleston, Pennsylvania State University, Tulane University, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center and Yale-and their K-12 education partners from across the country. The goal of this meeting is to establish a credited professional-development experience for all participants, which conveys the historical context for the slave trade in the Connecticut region. In addition, participants will contribute to the refinement of the American operations and offerings of the TST Education Project.

The UNESCO TST Project combines the efforts of secondary school teachers, curriculum developers, university professors, teacher trainers, historians, anthropologists, museum curators, archivists, ethnographers and heritage specialists.

The United States Partnership of the TST Project completes a “triangular” network of Associated Schools in Africa, the Americas/Caribbean and Europe. The program ensures a systematic exchange of information among the participating 500 schools representing 23 countries.

The conference will take place on Yale’s campus at Luce Hall Auditorium, 34 Hillhouse Avenue, and at notable historical sites across Connecticut. A convocation opening the event is at 9 a.m. on Thursday, July 25, and the closing session will be on Saturday evening, July 28.

Teachers attending the conference are eligible to receive Continuing Education Units. Prior registration is necessary. For more information and to obtain a registration form, visit the Gilder Lehrman Center website at http://www.yale.edu/glc/events/