Doors of Return: Ancestors, Rebirth, and Regeneration in Newport’s Black Community, 1696-2026
Newport’s role in the transatlantic slave trade and the wealth it generated is a story that needs exploration and attention. Yet the history of the system of slavery should not overshadow the stories of the people who recreated and reimagined themselves, their humanity, and their freedom. Freedom is not the “opposite” of slavery—belonging is. Enslavement was a social death that stripped people of homeland, family, ancestors, and language in an attempt to make them less-than-human. However, in African worldviews, death is always a rebirth—the social death of the Middle Passage was also the birth of the diaspora and its foundation of remembering, recovering, nurturing community and creating belonging based on ancestral knowledges. Newport’s Black history, and its legacies of rebirth, regeneration, freedom-making, and joy remain with us. They are part of the story of diaspora and global family and part of the tapestry of the city of Newport.
Dr. Akeia de Barros Gomes is Director of the Edward W. Kane and Martha J. Wallace Center for Black History at the Newport Historical Society. She is Visiting Scholar and Adjunct Lecturer at the Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice at Brown University.
6:00 pm
$20
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