Public Symposium
Friday, May 3, 2013
9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University
10 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA
This day-long symposium will focus on the Emancipation Proclamation and its hemispheric impact, recruitment of black troops, black communities, black women, and legacy in art.
Roots of Liberty: The Haitian Revolution and the American Civil War
Saturday, May 4, 2013
5 p.m. – 7 p.m. Doors open at 4:30.
Tremont Temple Baptist Church
88 Tremont Street
Boston, MA 02108
A performance celebrating the Haitian revolution hero Toussaint Louverture and the impact of the Haitian Revolution on the American Civil War, the antislavery movement and African American soldiers, set in Boston’s historic Tremont Temple, where the Emancipation Proclamation was read in 1863. Special guests include Danny Glover, author Edwidge Danticat, and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Agenda for the Public Symposium
Friday, May 3, 2013, 8:30 am — 5:00 pm
Radcliffe Gymnasium
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University
10 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA
8:30 — 9:00 am Registration and Coffee
9:00 — 9:15 am Introductory Remarks
Welcome: Lizabeth Cohen, Dean, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Howard Mumford Jones Professor of American Studies, Harvard University
Donald Yacovone, Manager of Research and Program Development, W.E.B. Du Bois Institute, Harvard University
9:15 — 10:45 am Panel 1. Black Communities, Women, and Civil Rights
Moderator: Evelyn B. Higginbotham, Victor S. Thomas Professor of History and Professor and Chair of Department of African and African American Studies, Harvard University
Panelists:
Lois Brown, Class of 1958 Distinguished Professor, African American Studies Program andDepartment of English, Wesleyan University
Anna-Lisa Cox, Consultant to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture; Associate of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute, Harvard University.
Kate Masur, Associate Professor of History, Northwestern University
Stephen Kantrowitz, Professor of History, University of Wisconsin, Madison
10:45 — 11:00 am Coffee Break
11:00 am — 12:30 pm Panel 2. The African American Military Experience
Moderator: Byron Rushing, Massachusetts State Representative
Panelists:
Donald Shaffer, Professor of History, American Public University System
Russell Duncan, Professor of History and Social Studies in the English-Speaking World, University of Copenhagen
Richard M. Reid, Associate Professor of History, University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada
Gretchen Long, Associate Professor of History, Williams College
12:30 — 1:30 pm Lunch
1:30 — 3:00 pm Panel 3. Emancipation in a Hemispheric Context
Moderator: Jean Casimir, Professor of Human Sciences of the University of Haiti and former Haitian ambassador to the United States
Panelists:
Laurent Dubois, Professor of French Studies and History and Director of the Center for French & Francophone Studies, Duke University
Vincent Brown, Professor of History and of African and African American Studies, Harvard University
Vitor Izecksohn, Graduate Program in Social History, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Seymour Drescher, University Professor of History, University of Pittsburgh
3:00 — 3:15 pm Coffee Break
3:15 — 4:45 pm Panel 4. The Art and Music of Emancipation
Moderator: Peter H. Wood, Emeritus Professor of History, Duke University
Panelists:
Karen C.C. Dalton, Editor, Image of the Black in Western Art Research Project and Photo Archive, W.E.B. Du Bois Institute, Harvard University
Richard J. Powell, John Spencer Bassett Professor of Art and Art History, Duke University
Deborah Willis, Chair of the Department of Photography & Imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University
John Stauffer, Professor of English and of African and African American Studies and Chair of the American Civilization Program, Harvard University
4:45 — 5:00 pm Concluding Remarks
David Blight, Class of 1954 Professor of American History and Director, Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance & Abolition, Yale University
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4