Workshops Session 1 (10:45-11:45am)

1.1) Crossing to the Other Side
Presenter: Don and Vivian Papson, Reverend Fred Shaw
A historical reading of the accounts of black and white abolitionist allies who assisted refugees from slavery to cross into Canada along our northern frontier, with special attention given to activity in the Lake Champlain region.

1.2) America’s Greatest Slave Rescue
Presenters: Scott Christianson, Author; Branda Miller, Professor of Media Arts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Joined by Women Residents of Troy YWCA
The rescue of fugitive slave Charles Nalle from Culpeper, Virginia, in Troy and Watervliet April-May of 1860 has been cited as a precipitating event of the Civil War and was the only episode in American history in which the same slave was rescued three times. It also ranks as one of the most spectacular feats by Black abolitionist Harriet Tubman. Based on more than ten years of research, author Scott Christianson recounts what happened and merits recognition as possibly the greatest event to have ever occurred in the Capital Region. Now, a century and a half later, 90 women living at the corner of Harriet Tubman’s historic act call the YWCA their home. They struggle to make sense of their economic disadvantages in a world where slavery increasingly seems to persist through new forms of globalization. Tubman’s memory calls out from the time of the UGR with compelling power – how did her act of courage change the world we live in now? How do any of our acts effect change in the communities in which we live, work, and create? Residents of the YWCA will share reflective responses.

1.3) Uncovering Local Anti-Slavery Societies in the Early 19th Century
Presenter: Douglas Kaufman, Social Studies Educator, Amsterdam High School
New York is rich in United States anti-slavery history. This workshop will demonstrate how to uncover your local community’s abolitionist history. Each participant will be provided with anti-slavery projects designed by the presenter as well as resources to reconstruct their own community’s local anti-slavery history. This workshop is ideal for high school educators looking to connect 19th century history to their community.

1.4) Researching the Margaret Garner (Beloved) Story: Discovering Women’s Motivations for Self-Liberation
Presenter: Delores M. Walters, Ph. D.
A Black feminist ethnographic approach provides the framework for considering the conditions and motivations for women’s escapes from enslavement. Specifically, what options did women and children have in responding to their extreme sexual vulnerability? What role did being mulatto play in women’s pursuit of freedom?

1.5) Quaker Genealogy – Interconnections Among Families With UGR Connections
Presenter: Jane Meader Nye, Member of the Saratoga Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, Quaker Springs, NY
This workshop will begin with “What is a Friend?” with an explanation of Quaker beginnings and the Quaker experience in Colonial America. Second will be an explanation of the structure then and today of a Friends Meeting and how this created a viable network between geographically separated families to actively participate in the activity of the Underground Railroad. Conclusion will include presenter’s family genealogy and how this illustrates connections with the Underground Railroad.

1.6) Solomon Northup Re-Enactment
Presenters: Clifford Oliver, Re-enactor as Solomon Northup; Johanna Carol, as Northup’s Daughter
Solomon Northup, native New Yorker, was kidnapped into slavery and returned home twelve year’s later. He is welcomed home by his now grown daughter. Clifford Oliver combines years of research with years of experience presenting the life of regional resident Solomon Northup. The stirring tale of his kidnap, enslavement, and, finally, escape is presented through the re-enactment format.

1.7) Blast The Trumpet of Liberty – A New teaching Curriculum On Troy’s African Americans in the 19th Century
Presenter: Ilene Frank, Director of Public Programs, Rensselaer County Historical Society
This workshop will introduce participants to a new teaching curriculum develop for upper elementary grades by the Rensselaer County Historical Society. During the workshop, we will complete one of the activities from the curriculum and discuss the research that went into its creation. This workshop will also introduce the participants to other available sources and information at RCHS’s library.

1.8) National Register Process of Historic Building Preservation Presenters: Mark Peckham, National Register Program Coordinator; Margaret Palmer; John Jones Museum, Elmira; Pamela Green, Executive Director, Weeksville Historical Society
How the services of the State Historic Preservation Office can contribute to the preservation and interpretation of historic Freedom Trail buildings. Pam Green and Margaret Palmer will share from their experience in bringing historic sites in their local communities to National Register status.

1.9) The Odyssey of Moses Viney
Presenter: Neil B. Yetwin, Teacher and Freelance Writer
A presentation on the life and times of Moses Viney, a Schenectady resident that escaped from slavery in Maryland in 1840 on the Underground Railroad. How the research was done, documents and publications about Viney will be shared.

Workshop Session 2 (2:00-3:00pm)

2.1) The Middle Passage Interactive Experience: A Pictorial Examination of Slave Dwellings in West Africa
Presenter: Vibetta Sanders, Owner, Cultural Connection Consultants
This presentation examines the resilient spirit of African people throughout the Diaspora utilizing a power point pictorial presentation of photos of slave dwellings and memorials taken in 6 countries throughout West Africa.

2.2) Freedom Seeking Activities in Peterboro in the 19th Century
Presenter: Donna Dorrance Burdick, Town of Smithfield, NY, Historian
This program focuses on the African Americans in Peterboro working for freedom during the 1800’s. Freedom seekers came to seek a haven, on their way to freedom, purchased from slavery, for an education, and to work in the abolitionist movement. Continued research is revealing more of the individual stories of each freedom seeker.

2.3) Discovering the Routes of the Underground Railroad in NYS for Middle School Students
Presenter: James Farrell, Educator, Maple Hill Middle School
Participants will examine a discovery model designed for Middle School students to use their geographic skills, both cultural and physical, to understand why and how NYS’s role in the UGR developed as it did.

2.4) Telling the Stories of the UGR
Presenter: Vanessa Johnson, Griot, Education Director, Onondaga Historical Assoc.
Use interactive and lively story telling to teach UGR history in the classroom. Turn primary documents into living history. Ms. Johnson will share documents form the Onondaga Historical Association’s research center and use story telling, African Instruments, songs, and educational guides to take you on a trip on the UGR.

2.5) African American Fiction of Resistance: Antebellum 19th C. Novels by Frederick Douglass, Martin Delany, and Frances E. W. Harper
Presenter: Leslie W. Lewis, Associate Professor of English and Director of American Studies Program, College of St. Rose
This workshop will focus on three novels published in the middle of the 19th c. and serialized in black periodicals of that time: Frederick Douglass’s The Heroic Slave (1853), Martin Delany’s Blake: or,The Huts of America (1859), and Frances E.W. Harper’s Minnie’s Sacrifice (1862). This session will contextualize these novels within the black periodical press of the 19th c. more generally, and will discuss the novels in terms of the message they presented to their African American readers. Also included as part of this workshop: African American literature resource materials, and a brief overview of early African American Literature.

2.6) Art, History, and Social Memory: Using Public Art to Connect with UGR History
Presenters: Len Tantillo, Artist, and Karen Starr, Librarian and Historian.
Len and Karen will discuss how society, through choice or circumstance, preserves or destroys aspects of cultural history. Len will share examples of how he uses art to recapture lost history. Karen will share examples of public memorial artwork that awakens and nurtures social “historical” memory. There will be a short discussion period.

2.7) The Economics of Antebellum Slavery
Presenter: Prof. Oscar R. Williams
Discussion of the slave trade during the antebellum period. Topics include domestic slave trade, pricing and demand for slaves, slave trading markets, cash crops, and Northern economic involvement.

2.8) Rokeby Museum and Ties to the Capital Region
Presenter: Jane Williamson, Rokeby Museum
Rokeby Museum is a National Historic Landmark UGR site and a 90-acre historic site. The Robinson family sheltered numerous fugitives from slavery, and their stories are documented in the Museum’s extensive archives. Virtually all of these fugitives traveled through NY on there way to Vermont, and some made stops in the Capital Region. This workshop will explore ties between the two areas as well as Quaker involvement, the religious motivations of abolitionism, and balancing local legends with the historical record.

2.9) Collaboration between Black and White Abolitionists and the UGR in NYS
Presenter: Tom Calarco, author of The Underground Railroad in the Adirondack Region and The Underground Railroad Conductor.
This presentation will reveal some of the many alliances around the state between black and white abolitionists. It also will reveal some of the conflict that existed. It will stress that the UGR was often a collaboration between black and white individuals, and indeed, that one of the most significant aspects for us today was this collaboration and its example of cooperation between the races.

Workshops Session 3 (3:30-4:30pm)

3.1) The Spirit of Song in Slavery and the UGR
Presenter: Ms. Toni Brown, Choir Director, Independent Researcher
Ms. Brown will provide an examination and experience of the place of song in slavery and in the UGR movement. A rehearsal song learned during the workshop will be presented at the conference closing.

3.2) Flight To Freedom: The Underground Railroad Story
Presenter: Ms. Nancy Marie Payne, Storyteller
Using storytelling to bring the people and events of the emancipation movement to life, a storyteller presents the story of the UGR as seen through the eyes of a Quaker farm wife from Easton, NY.

3.3) Connecting the Curriculum and Elementary Kids to Our Past
Presenters: Ms. Jill McGrath, Librarian, Ms. Catherine Adams, Second Grade Teacher, Ms. Pam Pratt, Library Aide and Quilter
Jill will present books from library collection. Cathy will discuss classroom activities. Pam will describe the role of quilt as used by those running north. Information will be included about anti-slavery alliances and varieties of resistance.

3.4) The Canadian Experience at the End of the Trail
Presenter: Ted Corbett, Ph. D.
A discussion and report of Canadian sources for those African Americans who arrived and settled in Canada.

3.5) Plantation Rebels and Freedom Seekers
Presenter: Leon Van Dyke, Associate, The New York African American Research Foundation, SUNY
This workshop will be based on John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger’s work, Runaway Slaves: Rebels on the Plantation. This book disassembles the myths that slaves were happy in their condition or that they were compliant and helpless with no where to go. This self-serving “Sambo” image that has portrayed blacks as happy and better off in slavery will be discussed, along with the myth that slaves were just sitting around waiting for abolitionists to lead them to freedom. The workshop will also discuss the role of free black communities in assisting freedom seekers.

3.6) The Sociology of the Underground Railroad
Presenter: Dr. Hayward Derrick Horton
The workshop will highlight the sociological factors that facilitated the UGR and the implication of the UGR movement for both blacks and whites of that period.

3.7) The Politics of Teaching African American Literature in the Classroom.
Presenter: Barbara Smith, Ph. D., Assistant Professor, College of Saint Rose

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