UNC Stone Center presents 1619 Collective Memory(ies) Symposium

This fall, the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History, working with other campus and community organizations, is sponsoring a groundbreaking project on history and cross-cultural collective memory(ies). This interdisciplinary project will shed new light on the history of the arrival of the first group of enslaved Africans to an English-speaking colony in what is now the United States and North Carolina. This project is distinguished by its focus on providing space for ‘conversations’ between invited participants, rather than lectures or panel discussions. This is why we have chosen to develop a project that highlights the themes of “freedom”, “sense of place” and “home”.  

The project’s basic objectives are:

• To stimulate and provide spaces for community (campus and beyond)  conversations on the history, memory and the central historical narrative about 1619; 
• To provide resources, and guidance to locate resources, about the history, memory, and narratives that are part of the written record and the traditional narratives that exist outside of formal sources;

• To develop partnerships with organizations, groups, and institutions in the immediate region and support their efforts to participate in the project as partners and as sponsors of their own programs;

• To document the ideas and local and collective projects that develop with, or as a result of, this Collective Memory(ies) project.

The Collective Memory(ies) Project will invite ‘conversants’ from communities that were thrown together as a result of the slave trade and European colonialism in both Africa and the Americas. During a morning/afternoon symposium, Native/Indigenous Americans, African Americans, Africans, Europeans and White Americans (descendants) will offer their unique insights and reflections on the 400th year since the eventful moment in 1619 when those enslaved Africans arrived at Point Comfort near the English settlement at Jamestown, in what is now Virginia.

A symposium will take place Monday, November 11 from 8:30 am to 3 pm and will feature 2 keynotes (morning and afternoon) that will serve as the foundation for the conversations that will take place between invited guests. Click here to RSVP

For more events, CLICK HERE