As part of our ongoing exploration of the 250th this year, we invited a group of Expand Massachusetts Stories grantees to join us in Holyoke on February 25 for a workshop and convening about Black history in the context of the American Revolution. Staff from seven EMS projects joined us, including:
- Community Art Center
- Company One
- Essex National Heritage Commission
- Marblehead Museum and Town of Marblehead
- Natick Historical Society
- Society of King’s Chapel
- Somerville Museum
2026 marks the 250th anniversary of the United States, as well and the 50th anniversary of Black History Month. Mass Humanities recognizes that both are deeply connected through their shared roots in the nation’s ongoing struggle to define freedom, citizenship, and democracy. As a result, we organized our gathering around a central question: Why is it vital to tell stories of Black history in the context of the American Revolution?
Anika Lopes, executive director of Ancestral Bridges, provided valuable insights into the importance of oral history and archives. In a conversation with Program Officer Latoya Bosworth, Ph.D., Lopes asked, “what is ‘revolutionary’ about any history that parallels and includes enslavement and displacement?”
“For Black and Afro-Indigenous and Indigenous people, we…we were not meant to know our histories,” she added. “We knew we have this extraordinary record of oral history. But there’s always this, ‘oh, do you really know?’ ‘How do you know this?’ ‘What makes you an authority?’”
Over the course of the day, grantees completed a collective poem. They added lines one at a time, and were only able to read the line that appeared immediately before theirs. At the end of the day, the complete poem was read aloud, offering a deep reflection on the importance of storytelling. The poem began with the line, “We must give our stories to the world,” a quotation by Carter G. Woodson, the Father of Black History.