Middle Passage Markers: Sites of Slavery, Civil Rights and Resistance
Thursday 24 February 2022
This event will show the pivotal role heritage can play in helping us uncover underrepresented historical narratives.
This event will show the pivotal role heritage can play in helping us uncover underrepresented historical narratives, by exploring key sites in African-American history.
We will begin with buildings connected to slavery across Africa and the Caribbean, examining the trading posts and ports that were the starting points of the transatlantic slave trade. Moving forward in time we will discuss the struggle for emancipation, highlighting the lesser known sites where newly freed slaves took refuge. Our trajectory will end with the landmark locations in Birmingham, Montgomery, Selma and across the Black Belt in the U.S. that stood at the heart of the Civil Rights Movement, such as churches that were at the forefront of fighting segregation, and a barber shop where historic meetings took place between representatives of the black and white populations of Montgomery in the beginning of the civil rights era.
By drawing attention to these buildings, and most importantly the stories within them, the World Monuments Fund is ensuring that the long struggle for racial equality is never forgotten.