Engage Your Audiences with Difficult Topics in African American History: A Workshop for Museums, Historic Sites, Libraries, and Other Cultural Institutions
Date: January 25, 2019 (snow date January 30, 2019)
Time: 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Location: Grounds For Sculpture, 80 Sculptors Way, Hamilton, NJ 08619
Cost: $60 per person (discount to $50 per person for teams of 3 or more from a single organization); $35 for students and seniors. Fee includes breakfast, lunch, and admission to the Grounds For Sculpture.
Registration will close on January 17, 2019.
What is the responsibility of cultural institutions to acknowledge the full scope of our nation’s history by incorporating African American history? What are our challenges in doing this? What can we learn from the work of colleagues in the field? Through moderated panel discussions, small group break-outs and presentations, participants will be invited to consider these and other questions related to presenting complex issues and difficult information.
At the luncheon, Reverend William Howard will speak on “The Past Is Present.” From his early life in Americus, Georgia to the present, M. William (Bill) Howard, Jr. has sought to apply his faith toward transforming the human condition. He was deeply involved in a wide-range of human rights and anti-colonial campaigns in the US, Southern Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and Asia. He chaired the NJ Death Penalty Study Commission, which led to the State of NJ becoming the first state in the USA to abolish the death penalty after it was re-authorized by the US Supreme Court in 1976.
This workshop is hosted by Sakofa Collaborative. In 2017, five New Jersey organizations – 1804 Consultants, Grounds For Sculpture, The New Jersey Historical Society, Stoutsburg Sourland African American Museum, and the 1719 William Trent House Museum – formed the Sankofa Collaborative. It’s purpose is to help educators in schools, museums and libraries present, interpret, and discuss African American history.
The Collaborative’s 2017 workshops drew capacity audiences, who later expressed the need and desire for more in-depth examination of African American history.
This workshop is made possible, in part, through generous grants from the New Jersey Council for the Humanities and the New Jersey Historical Commission – NJHC.
About the New Jersey Historical Commission
The New Jersey Historical Commission (NJHC) is a state agency dedicated to the advancement of public knowledge and preservation of New Jersey history. Established by law in 1967, its work is founded on the fundamental belief that an understanding of our shared heritage is essential to sustaining a cohesive and robust democracy.
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