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Conversations on the Commons: Researching and discussing slavery in Massachusetts
January 22, 2021 @ 1:00 pm - 2:30 pm
Researching and Discussing Slavery in Massachusetts
A conversation with Kristin Gallas, principal at Interpreting Slavery, and Meadow Dibble, Director of Atlantic Black Box
January 22, 2021, 1:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.
Join us for a conversation on researching and interpreting slavery and the slave trade in Massachusetts. Kristin Gallas and Meadow Dibble will discuss opportunities for opening up discussion both in schools and historical organizations about Massachusetts’ role in the Atlantic world slave economy and will review sources and research methods for locating free and enslaved Black and Indigenous community members in the archive. Are you interested in starting a conversation on the history of enslavement in your local community? Thinking about how to frame the conversation? Have you done research on slavery in your town? Investigated your community’s participation in various aspects of the slave trade and economy? When people ask, do you know where to send them? If we do not have artifacts or documents, what else can we do? What do you do if your town is largely white? Are you curious what sources to consult? What local materials teachers might be able to use? Tell us about your successes and obstacles you’ve met. Bring your insights and questions to the Conversation!
Registration is free. REGISTER NOW.
This Conversation will be livestreamed. We will do our best to monitor your questions and comments during the livestream. A recording will be publicly available in the Conversations on the Commons Archive.
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- Kristin Gallas is a principal at Interpreting Slavery. She facilitates workshops for museums and historic sites on developing comprehensive and conscientious interpretation of slavery and speaks regularly at public history and museum conferences. She is the co-editor, with James DeWolf Perry, of “Interpreting Slavery at Museums and Historic Sites” (Rowman & Littlefield, January 2015), and author of the forthcoming “Interpreting Slavery with Children and Teens” (Rowman and Littlefield, September 2021). She developed the Tracing Center on Histories and Legacies of Slavery’s public history efforts and oversaw the design of workshops for educators. Kristin holds a bachelor’s degree in secondary history education from the University of Vermont and a master of arts in museum education from George Washington University. She has led the education and/or interpretation departments at the Montana Historical Society, the USS Constitution Museum, and currently at the Tsongas Industrial History Center.
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- Meadow Dibble is the Founding Director of Atlantic Black Box, a public history project devoted to researching and reckoning with New England’s role in the slave trade and the economy of enslavement. Currently a Visiting Scholar at Brown University’s Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice, she received her PhD from Brown’s Department of French with a focus on Postcolonial Studies and taught Francophone African literature at Colby College from 2005–08. Originally from Cape Cod, Meadow lived for six years on Senegal’s Cape Verde peninsula prior to pursuing her graduate studies; there she published a cultural magazine and coordinated foreign study programs. In collaboration with the team that produces Teaching Hard History, the Southern Poverty Law Center’s flagship podcast, she is currently producing “The Diseased Ship Podcast” with support from the Maine Humanities Council.
Questions? Be in touch with Caroline Littlewood: commons@masshistoryalliance.org
Conversations on the Commons
Where people from Massachusetts history organizations get to vent, empathize, laugh, complain, think, collaborate, brainstorm, plan, and in general be up to no good.