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June 2018
Two Lectures in Wise County, Virigina.
Big Stone Gap, Virginia: On June 21, Marvin T. Jones is giving two presentations at a genealogical workshop at the Mountain Empire Community College. The first lecture is about the development, activities and findings of the Chowan Discovery Group's work on the Winton Triangle. The second talk will be about the Winton Triangle's role in the Civil War. The workshop is a pre-conference event connected to the Melungeon Heritage Association Reunion. Chowan Discovery thanks Dr. Mike Gilley of the Mountain…
Find out more »October 2018
First of a Four Film Series: THE CAMPAIGNS OF MOLLY HUNDLEY
In conjunction with the Community Alliance for Upper Fourteenth Street (CAUFS), Chowan Discovery is showing four documentaries October 2, 5, 9 and 12. All times are at 6:30 pm at at Andromeda Transcultural Health at 14th and Decatur Streets in Washington, DC. From 1921 to 1955, Mrs. Mary Gibson Hundley was an exacting teacher of French and Latin at the famous Dunbar High School in Washingon, D.C. The film’s title reflects Mrs. Hundley’s educational advancement against racism at her college; her drive…
Find out more »AUNT and FORT STEVENS film to be shown near story’s site.
Elizabeth Proctor Thomas, 1824 - 1917. In conjunction with the Community Alliance for Upper Fourteenth Street (CAUFS), Chowan Discovery is showing four documentaries October 2, 5, 9 and 12. All times are at 6:30 pm at at Andromeda Transcultural Health at 14th and Decatur Streets in Washington, DC. The property of an African American farmer and landowner, Elizabeth “Aunt Betty” Thomas, was taken by the U.S. Army in order to build Fort Stevens which saw battle in the Civil War. …
Find out more »Alumni tell of story of a school conceived at a DC fort during the Civil War.
In conjunction with the Community Alliance for Upper Fourteenth Street (CAUFS), Chowan Discovery is showing four documentaries October 2, 5, 9 and 12. All times are at 6:30 pm at at Andromeda Transcultural Health at 14th and Decatur Streets in Washington, DC. In 1864 in the barracks of Fort Stevens around the time of its successful defense against an invading Confederate force, the Military Road School as founded for children of color. Ninety years later, the school closed. Its last…
Find out more »Residents of prosperous Black neighborhoods tell their story.
In conjunction with the Community Alliance for Upper Fourteenth Street (CAUFS), Chowan Discovery is showing four documentaries October 2, 5, 9 and 12. All times are at 6:30 pm at at Andromeda Transcultural Health at 14th and Decatur Streets in Washington, DC. The Chowan Discovery-produced film, Oral Histories from the Gold Coast and the Upper 16th Street Communities, is 20 minute documentary that tells the story of the Crestwood, 16th Street Heights, Shepherd Park, Colonial Village, and North Portal Estates neighborhoods…
Find out more »November 2018
Winton Triangle lecture in Smithfield VA
Marvin T. Jones presents photographs, maps and narrative of his community’s 275 year-old history of landowning mixed-race people in North Carolina’s Hertford County area. The written history of the Winton Triangle began in 1584 when the English first learned about the area. The three main towns of the Triangle are Winton, Cofield and Ahoskie. The Winton Triangle’s story is that of a new people who cobbled success and identity despite colonization, wars, slavery and discrimination. Jones uses maps, documents and…
Find out more »February 2019
How the North brought Education to the South before, during and after the Civil War.
During and after the Civil War, Union officers and missionaries expanded literacy and skills in the south, resulting in a great rise in the reading population and creating schools, some of which exist today. A school established in a Washington, D.C. army barracks in 1864 is still going strong. Fisk, Hampton, Howard and Shaw are among the universities that rose in the first five years after the war. Within ten years…
Find out more »In Raleigh, “Haiti and the Civil War”
The Civil War is sometimes called the Second Haitian Revolution. Pro-slavers feared Haiti, and the enslaved and abolitionists found great hope from Toussaint Louverture and Haiti. This lecture details the actions of enslaved and abolitionists who were encouraged by the Haitian Revolution, Haiti’s own involvement in offering freedom to people of color, and why Haiti was so important to keeping alive the hope that all Americans would be free. American leaders who wrote and spoke of their admiration for Louverture include…
Find out more »May 2019
A Freeborn Community’s Response to the Civil War and Beyond
This presentation is about a century-old community of freeborn landowners and their contributions in and after the Civil War. A year after the Confederates seized a mixed race, married mother of three and used her as a lure, her Winton Triangle community responded by enlisting in the Union military. Over seventy of North Carolina’s Winton Triangle men fought in North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida. They took part in the destruction of Charleston, captured what was to become Gen. Grant’s ultimate headquarters,…
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