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RPL in the News: "Harvard Divinity School Faculty Discuss Teaching the Legacy of Slavery"

March 25, 2023

Harvard Crimson writers Julian J. Giordano and Sami E. Turner cover the sixth and final event in the HDS series of public online conversations titled “Religion and Legacies of Slavery,” which aims to build on Harvard’s landmark Legacy of Slavery report released in April 2022. The event, “Reflecting on Religion and the Legacies of Slavery,” featured the series' contributing faculty, who reflected on the core questions of the webinar series, and on the school’s ties to slavery and its responsibility to educate the next generation of religious scholars and leaders. The event was hosted by Diane L. Moore, faculty director of Religion and Public Life; and Melissa Wood Bartholomew, associate dean of diversity, inclusion, and belonging.... Read more about RPL in the News: "Harvard Divinity School Faculty Discuss Teaching the Legacy of Slavery"

Tracey E. Hucks, Victor S. Thomas Professor of Africana Religious Studies, was the featured speaker in the fifth conversation of the six part Religion and the Legacies of Slavery series.

Video: Slavers and Slavery: Dialogue with Descendants

March 22, 2023

On March 6, 2023, HDS hosted the fifth installment in the the six-part series Religion and the Legacies of Slavery: A Series of Public Online Conversations. The featured speakers were Tracey E. Hucks, Victor S. Thomas Professor of Africana Religious Studies, Dain Perry, and Constance Perry.

Slavery is most readily associated with the U.S. American South with the geographies of the North often eclipsed. Tracey Hucks lead a discussion on slavery and the slave trade that focused on New England and the DeWolf family of Rhode Island. The DeWolf family was understood as the largest slave-trading family in the United States and Dain Perry, a direct descendant, will be featured in this webinar. The event will also highlight the reparative and healing workshops co-facilitated by Dain and his wife Constance Perry conducted throughout the U.S. at religious, social, and educational institutions.

Crossing a Line by Amahl A. Bishara book cover

Audio: Book Event: Crossing a Line: Laws, Violence and Roadblocks to Political Expression

March 10, 2023

Amahl A. Bishara, Associate Professor of Anthropology at Tufts University, and author of Back Stories: U.S. News Producation and Palestinian Politics, discusses her book Crossing a Line: Laws, Violence and Roadblocks to Political Expression. The book looks to sites of political practice, such as journalism, historical commemorations, street demonstrations, social media, in prison, and on the road, to analyze how Palestinians create collectivities in circumstances of constraint. Drawing on firsthand research, personal interviews, and public media, Crossing a Line illuminates how expression is always grounded in place, and how a people can struggle together for liberation even when they cannot join together in protest.

The discussion was moderated by Raef Zreik, Religion and Public Life Visiting Scholar in Conflict and Peace. The event was co-sponsored by The Center for Middle Eastern Studies Harvard University.... Read more about Audio: Book Event: Crossing a Line: Laws, Violence and Roadblocks to Political Expression

Memory, History and the Ethics of Reparations, the fourth installment in the the six-part series Religion and the Legacies of Slavery: A Series of Public Online Conversations.

Video: Memory, History, and the Ethics of Reparations

March 7, 2023

On February 27, HDS hosted the fourth installment in the the six-part series Religion and the Legacies of Slavery: A Series of Public Online Conversations. The featured speaker was Terrence L. Johnson, Professor of African American Religious Studies at HDS.

The 1619 Project spawned an unprecedented national conversation in and outside the classroom on slavery’s ongoing afterlives in American society. The enthusiastic response to the project was not universal. A few historians noted in a letter to the Times that the project reflected “a displacement of historical understanding of ideology.” The challenge raised here underscores central ethical concerns at the center of American national identity: who is responsible for slavery? What role does religion play in addressing the lingering “afterlives” of African enslavement in the United States? Do African and African American scholars play a unique role in public debates and scholarship on slavery? Terrence Johnson will examine how the writings of W.E.B. Du Bois and Toni Morrison establish a framework for exploring the role of religion and ethics in grappling with the memory and history of African enslavement.... Read more about Video: Memory, History, and the Ethics of Reparations

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RPL in the News: "Husband Descended From Slave-Trading Family and Wife Whose Ancestors Were Enslaved Speak at HDS Event"

March 7, 2023

Harvard Crimson writers Julian J. Giordano and Nicole Y. Lu cover the fifth event in the HDS series of public online conversations titled “Religion and Legacies of Slavery,” which aims to build on Harvard’s landmark Legacy of Slavery report released in April 2022. The event, “Slavers and Slavery: A Dialogue with Descendants,” featured HDS professor of Africana Religious Studies Tracey E. Hucks, who moderated a discussion on reparations and the legacy of slavery with Dain Perry, a descendant of the largest slave-trading family in U.S. history, and Constance R. Perry, whose ancestors were enslaved. The event was hosted by Diane L. Moore, faculty director of Religion and Public Life; and Melissa Wood Bartholomew, associate dean of diversity, inclusion, and belonging.... Read more about RPL in the News: "Husband Descended From Slave-Trading Family and Wife Whose Ancestors Were Enslaved Speak at HDS Event"

Morgan Curtis, MTS '23 / Courtesy image

How Family History Can Inspire Accountable Reparations and Foster Ancestral Healing

March 6, 2023

"Enslavement was a family matter for our founders. Virtually every Divinity School affiliate who spoke out against slavery had close family members who profited from enslavement. And many of them profited indirectly as well. . . . Part of my inspiration for telling this story through the lens of family history is the work that many Divinity School students are currently doing on ancestral healing [meaning] seeking to redress past harms and their ongoing legacies in ways that include our ancestors—both ancestors who perpetrated the harms and ancestors who suffered them.”

—Dan McKanan, “Harvard Divinity School and Slavery: Family Stories,” Religion and the Legacies of Slavery... Read more about How Family History Can Inspire Accountable Reparations and Foster Ancestral Healing