Goucher College Hosts Symposium on Slavery

Release date: April 23, 2008 |

"Forces of Freedom: Manumission and Emancipation in the Mid-Atlantic" -- a symposium on African Americans' pre-Civil War struggle for freedom and the effect their liberation had on slaves and their former owners -- will take place on Wednesday, April 23, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Goucher College's Merrick Lecture Hall.

Registration is required for the all-day symposium by Friday, April 11. Fees are $45 for non-students and $30 for non-Goucher students; Goucher students may attend for free. For more information or to register, call 410-823-1309 ext. 237, e-mail hamp_symposium2008@nps.gov, or go online to www.nps.gov/hamp.

Speakers will be Regina Akers, an archivist at the Operational Archives Branch of the Naval Historical Center in Washington, D.C.; Jean Baker, a professor of history at Goucher College; Joseph Becton, a supervisory park ranger at the Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia; Spencer Crew, the president and chief executive officer of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati; Debra Newman-Hamm, a professor of history at Morgan State University; David Terry, the executive director of the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture in Baltimore; and James Thomas, the founding president and chief executive officer of the U.S. Slave Song Project Inc.

This event is co-sponsored by Goucher College, the National Park Service, and Historic Hampton Inc. The 1829 Hampton National Historic Site, formerly one of the largest slave-owning estates in Maryland, was also the site of one of the largest manumissions in the state's history.