Chowan Discovery Group

Two Lectures in Wise County, Virigina.

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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 Empire Community College and Scott Withrow, President of the Melungeon Heritage Association, for the invitation.

The times for the lectures will be posted later.

 

Winton Triangle Soldiers on the Wall of the African American Civil War Memorial

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As an offering for the Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference, Chowan Discovery  is hosting a tour of the African American Civil War Museum and the African American Civil War Memorial in Washington, D.C.  On the Memorial’s wall of 200, 000 names, each attendee will search for a Winton Triangle soldier after given a card with the name and a profile of the soldier.  We will lunch afterwards at Washington’s most famous eatery, Ben’s Chili Bowl.  Here is more information.

 

Pleasant Plains School at Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference

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The CDG is hosting the academic panel, “Origins and growth of Mixed Race Groups from the South to Ohio” at the Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference at the University of Maryland – College Park on March 3, 2017.  Marvin T. Jones’ presentation, “A Mixed Race school, Pleasant Plains, 1866 – 1950” is based on his work in placing the Winton Triangle’s first schoolhouse on the National Register of Historic Places.  Other participants of the panel are

  • Dr. Jill E. Rowe, Western Michigan University: “Mixed-Race Antebellum Communities in the Old Northwest”
  • Bertie County’s Dr. Arwin D. Smallwood, North Carolina A&T University: “Documenting and Exploring the Early History of Mixed Race Peoples: Over Five Hundred Years of the Merging of Native American, African, and European Peoples in North America from the 1500s to the present”.

Panel is moderator by author Margo Lee Williams.  The panel’s time and location is 1pm, March 3 at Banneker B, University of Maryland Adele H. Stamp Student Union, 3972 Campus Drive, College Park, MD, 20742.

The conference runs from March 1-3; registration is required.  Chowan Discovery is hosting an after-conference tour the following day.

On SiriusXM – AN ARMY OF EDUCATORS redux

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Dr. Wilmer J. Leon III of Sirius-XM’s “Inside the Issues with Wilmer Leon” show will once again host Marvin T. Jones for a segment about the latest Chowan Discovery lecture, “An Army of Educators”.

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 after the war, Howard University was graduating men and women with degrees in medicine and law. Although many schools were destroyed and teachers and students threatened, the growth of education for people of color continued.  The Winton Triangle has its own story about a missionary teacher.

Marvin T. Jones will give a overview of the people and organizations who propagated education among people of color and how southern whites also greatly benefitted.

Tune in Saturday, December 9 at 11am on SiriusXM Channel 126.

“An Army of Educators” – a new Chowan Discovery lecture

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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 after the war, Howard University was graduating men and women with degrees in medicine and law. Although many schools were destroyed and teachers and students threatened, the growth of education for people of color continued.  The Winton Triangle has its own story about a missionary teacher. Marvin T. Jones will give a overview of the people and organizations who propagated education among people of color and how southern whites also greatly benefitted.  As always, this lecture includes many stories and images of portraits, documents and places.

This talk is hosted by the Rock Creek Nature Center’s Civil War Roundtable which is always followed by a lively lunch at Ledo Pizza at 7435 Georgia Avenue, NW in DC.  The sponsors are the wonderful supporters of Chowan Discovery!