Slavery, Emancipation, and Race in Massachusetts
A Free Talk at the African Meeting House on Nantucket
(Nantucket, MA) The Museum of African American History invites the public to a free lecture
on “Slavery, Emancipation, and Race in Massachusetts” on Tuesday, July 14, 2009 at 3:00 pm.
The Annual Bette and Frank Spriggs Lecture takes place at the African Meeting House, 29
York Street (Five Corners), on Nantucket. A reception follows the program.
Dr. Joanne Melish, Associate Professor of History at the University of Kentucky, will deliver
the talk. Melish is Associate Professor of History at the University of Kentucky, where she
also directs the American Studies Program and co-directs the Africana Studies Initiative.
Dr. Melish received her B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. in American Civilization from Brown
University. She is the author of Disowning Slavery: Gradual Emancipation and “Race” in
New England, 1780-1860, as well as a number of essays and articles on slavery,
emancipation, race, and northern free black communities in the antebellum period.
Currently she is working on a book-length project whose working title is “Making Black
Communities: Language, Place, and Class in the Antebellum North.”
About the Museum of African American History
The Museum of African American History is dedicated to preserving, conserving and
accurately interpreting the contributions of African Americans in New England from the
colonial period through the 19th century. The Museum has four historic sites: on
Nantucket, the African Meeting House (1820s) and the Seneca Boston-Florence
Higginbotham House (c1774) and in Boston, the African Meeting House (1806) and the
Abiel Smith School (1835). Black Heritage Trail® tours are available on Nantucket and
Boston's Beacon Hill.
