The Drinking Gourd Project Sponsors Traces of the Trade Event

Posted on | February 25, 2010 | 1 Comment

PRESS RELEASE
Contacts: Liz Clayton
The Drinking Gourd Project
107 Brister’s Hill Rd, Concord, MA 01742
978.318.3910
Or Louise Axon
978.371.5652

The Drinking Gourd Project Sponsors Traces of the Trade Event

Concord, MA – The Drinking Gourd Project will present a screening and discussion of Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North. This award-winning film documents – the DeWolfe family’s exploration of their slave-trading legacy. Their journey retraces the Triangle Trade – from Rhode Island to slave forts in Ghana to sugar plantation ruins in Cuba. A discussion with DeWolfe family members will follow the film. This free event will be held on March 5th from 7:00 – 9:00 pm at the Concord Art Association, 37 Lexington Rd,. Concord, MA.

Historian Jayne Gordon will link the film to local history – discussing the life stories and struggle for freedom of early African residents of Concord, as well as the town’s leadership in the Abolitionist movement. Additionally, Concord teachers will share how they are bringing this history to life with their students.

The Drinking Gourd Project is dedicated to shedding light on Concord’s “untold revolutions.” The Town’s role in the American Revolution and in the literary and philosophical ‘revolution’ of Transcendentalism has long been celebrated. Less well known are the struggles and contributions of Concord’s African residents and the leadership that women of Concord provided to yet another revolution – the abolition of slavery on the United States. For decades, the Concord Female Anti-Slavery Society sponsored speakers, raised funds, wrote and distributed publications, signed petitions, sheltered fugitive slaves, and assisted African Americans in the community. Long before Emerson and Thoreau spoke out against slavery, their wives, daughters, and female friends were crusading abolitionists. Mary Merrick Brooks and others worked with leading figures in the movement, including William Garrison, Wendell Phillips, John Brown and Harriet Tubman – all of whom spoke and fund-raised on Concord.

The Drinking Gourd Project currently is leading an effort to save the Caesar Robbins house, built in 1780 by a freed man and Revolutionary War patriot. The only remaining house in Concord built by an 18th century African resident, the cottage was home to six generations of Caesar Robbins family. They lived there from 1780 to 1881, a period that witnessed the African American struggle for freedom against the backdrop of our nation’s fight for independence and civil rights. The last African inhabitant of the house was Peter Hutchison, who is registered as Concord’s first African voter, and is also the subject of Emerson’s poem, “Peter’s Field.”

With assistance from the Town and private donors, the group plans to move the house close to its original location near The North Bridge and restore it as an education center focused on Concord’s African and Abolitionist history. In addition to private donations to fund moving, preserving and restoring the house, the group is asking Concord voters to support warrant articles 35 and 36 at Town Meeting, Warrant article 35 provides CPC funding for restoring the house; Warrant article 36 provides a long-term lease for a parcel of land nest The North Bridge as the new location of the Caesar Robbins house.

For further information, contact The Drinking Gourd Project at drinkinggourd.cchumanrights.org.

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