Last week, we shared a video of Cynthia R. Copeland in which she discussed the power of public history to engage communities and reckon with the past. This week, Copeland describes the goals and content of the 2023 Public History Institute that was offered as part of CIC’s Legacies of American Slavery initiative. She served as director of the Institute.
On July 30–August 4, 2023, teams from seven CIC member colleges and universities gathered at Yale University for a program that focused on public interpretation(s) of American slavery and the legacies of slavery, with the goal of supporting public-facing projects in each community. Each team included two campus representatives (usually a faculty member or administrator and a librarian) plus a representative from a community-based nonprofit organization.
Participating institutions were selected through a competitive process. Each team brought to New Haven a specific project or plan to engage their campus and community members. Projects ranged from the public interpretation of a 19th-century slave trader’s business records to a program of commemorative plaques marking slavery-related sites in Rhode Island to a community-focused examination of the disproportionate incarceration of Black people.
Here are the participating teams:
- Capital University and the Ohio History Collective (Columbus, OH)
- Fontbonne University and the Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site (St Louis, MO)
- Franklin & Marshall College and the African American Historical Society of Central Pennsylvania (Lancaster, PA)
- Randolph College and the Jones Memorial Library (Lynchburg, VA)
- Roger Williams University (Bristol, RI) and the Rhode Island Slave History Medallion Project (Newport, RI)
- Ursinus College and the Bethlehem Baptist Church (Collegeville, PA)
- Virginia Union University and the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia (Richmond, VA)
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