The Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire opens its three-day celebration of Juneteenth – a holiday celebrating the emancipation of those who had been enslaved in the United States – with a virtual workshop entitled Finding Our Roots: Researching Black History and Genealogy on Thursday, June 17, from 10 AM to 2:30 PM.
Moderated by Kabria Baumgartner, Associate Professor of English at the University of New Hampshire and author of In Pursuit of Knowledge: Black Women and Educational Activism in Antebellum America (NYU Press, 2019), the program features five speakers. Public historian Shawn Halifax will begin with suggestions and guidelines for researching African ancestors and discuss his ongoing research into Abolitionist and Civil War Veteran Martin Becker, an Asian-African American who was born in Surinam and who, for a time, lived in New Hampshire.
Professor Robert Bellinger, founder and director of the Black Studies Program at Suffolk University, will share his experience in exploring the genealogy of his own African American family.
Two experts from the University of Arizona – Charmaine Bonner, Processing Archivist, and Jessica Salow, Specialist in the Community-Driven Archives Initiative – will lead off the afternoon with a session on primary source materials, helpful databases, and other resources available to family history researchers.
Tonya Ward Singer, a Moffatt, Ladd, and Langdon descendant, will discuss her efforts to find the descendants of the people who were enslaved by her ancestors in order to understand and heal from the legacies of racial violence and white silence. The cost of the virtual workshop is $40.
Juneteenth is observed annually to commemorate the emancipation of all African Americans who were enslaved in the United States. President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation declared that, as of January 1, 1863, “all persons held as slaves within any state in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.”
However, it was not until June 19, 1865, two years later, when the US Army took possession of Galveston Island in Texas, that enslaved people in Galveston, and throughout Texas, could begin their journey towards freedom. Juneteenth has been celebrated in Galveston since 1866, and its re-emergence as a widespread celebration in the 20th century led to the day becoming a Texas state holiday in 1979. Juneteenth is now recognized as a holiday or day of commemoration in 47 states.
The 2021 three-day celebration, “Found Lineage: Celebrating African American Roots and Branches,” is sponsored by Eastern Bank, ReVision Energy, People’s United Bank, the University of New Hampshire, the Portsmouth Music Hall, McLane Middleton, and Centrus Digital. To register for the above workshop or to access information about other Juneteenth programs, please visit BlackHeritageTrailNH.org or call 570-8469.
The Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire, located at 222 Court Street, in Portsmouth, works to visibly honor and share a truer, more inclusive history through exhibits, educational programs, curriculum development, and tours that can change the way our country understands human dignity when it is free of historical stereotypes. Its mission is to promote awareness and appreciation of African American history and life in order to build more inclusive communities today.