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Belonging
Unfortunately, this event has been postponed. When a new date has been scheduled, we’ll be in touch again to let you know.
The Congregational Library & Archives, located at 14 Beacon St, brings old and new together, carrying forward a tradition of care for the world’s future by preserving and interpreting the 400+ year Congregational story. The library’s mission is to foster a deeper understanding of the spiritual, intellectual, cultural, and civic dimensions of the Congregational story and its ongoing relevance to contemporary society by collecting, preserving, and sharing materials and by actively engaging with faith communities, students, scholars, and the general public. The Congregational story is about ordinary people doing extraordinary things, beginning with the seventeenth-century puritans, continuing in the activism of nineteenth-century abolitionists and social reformers, and seen in the work modern-day Congregational churches devote toward creating a just and open society.
In person and online webinars are offered regularly. Here’s one that is coming up on Zoom on Wednesday, October 23rd from 1-2 pm EDT. The event is free to all, but registration is required via this link: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/3917266582908/WN_VE5tQAkSSwGNxNuVqDyTeQ
Join us to celebrate the release of Belonging: An Intimate History of Slavery and Family in Early New England with author Dr. Gloria McCahon Whiting.New England is often considered a cradle of liberty in United States history, but it was also a cradle of slavery. From the earliest years of colonization, New Englanders bought and sold people, most of whom were of African descent. In Belonging, Gloria McCahon Whiting tells the region’s early history from the perspective of the people, like Jane and Sebastian, who belonged to others and who struggled to maintain a sense of belonging among their kin.
Through a series of meticulously reconstructed family narratives, Whiting traces the contours of enslaved people’s intimate lives in early New England, where they often lived with those who bound them but apart from kin. Enslaved spouses rarely were able to cohabit; fathers and their offspring routinely were separated by inheritance practices; children could be removed from their mothers at an enslaver’s whim; and people in bondage had only partial control of their movement through the region, which made more difficult the task of maintaining distant relationships.
But Belonging does more than lay bare the obstacles to family stability for those in bondage. Whiting also charts Afro-New Englanders’ persistent demands for intimacy throughout the century and a half stretching from New England’s founding to the American Revolution. And she shows how the work of making and maintaining relationships influenced the region’s law, religion, society, and politics. Ultimately, the actions taken by people in bondage to fortify their families played a pivotal role in bringing about the collapse of slavery in New England’s most populous state, Massachusetts.
Mark your calendars now to join us on Zoom on Wednesday, October 23rd from 1-2 pm EDT.
The event is free to all, but registration is required via this link: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/3917266582908/WN_VE5tQAkSSwGNxNuVqDyTeQ
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about attending the webinar.
For more information, please email programs@14beacon.org.
LEARN MORE AND REGISTER
