Goucher College holds Descendant engagement symposium

On April 5 and 6, Goucher College held a Descendant engagement symposium, called “Tracing Lives Through Slavery, Engaging Hallowed Grounds Along the Road to Freedom: Preserving, Protecting & Redefining Community.” The event was co-hosted by the Hampton National Historic Site, which is a former plantation now managed by the National Park Service, and Historic East Towson, Baltimore County’s oldest African American community.

Discussions at the event highlighted the voices of American descendants of slavery, referred to here as Descendants, in the re-interpretation of historic sites and college-campus narratives. The symposium brought together representatives from other historic sites, Descendant communities, and seven Maryland colleges and universities to share the work they are doing and their visions for the next steps of memorialization and reconciliation, with a focus on centering Descendant perspectives.

More than 100 people came for the symposium in the Hyman Forum of the Ungar Athenaeum. Goucher College President Kent Devereaux began the event by welcoming everyone to campus and by sharing the college’s land acknowledgment, a statement to recognize the Indigenous people who lived on and took care of the land before colonialism.

“The dialogue at the symposium was intense throughout the entire day. People from near and far wanted to be a part of the conversation to learn, to listen, to discuss. It was about what has worked and what has not worked in the past. It was about where we are now and how to move forward,” said Deborah Harner, the education archivist for Goucher College Library’s Special Collections & Archives, who helped organize the event. “People engaged in difficult conversations, made connections, and wanted to continue the discussion. It was extremely powerful.”

As the Goucher campus was originally part of the Ridgley estate that now makes up the Hampton National Historic Site, Devereaux also shared his sense of obligation to share the stories of the people who previously occupied the land and to chart a new path forward.

That work includes the Hallowed Ground Project, a Goucher College initiative, started in 2018, that focuses on the reckoning and reconciliation of past narratives by examining the colonialism and racism on the landscape. Through the project, Goucher began addressing the issues of slavery, Indigenous erasure, and other forms of racial injustice that have occurred on the land that Goucher occupies. Over the past five years, the college has stricken racist language from the land deed, worked to repatriate Indigenous artifacts discovered in the Goucher Museum collection, added a harmful language disclaimer to the data fields of The Donnybrook Fair (the college yearbook) in the Goucher College Digital Library, and joined Universities Studying Slavery, an international consortium of more than 90 institutions of higher learning, among other initiatives.

At the symposium, leaders from the National Park Service spoke about the work that is being done at other historic sites, and Robert Stewart, the acting superintendent of the Hampton National Historic Site, evoked a theme of the day’s discussions as he emphasized the power of place and the stories and legacies attached to those places. “We are all here because of past events,” Stewart said. “Because we are here, we can change and inspire the future.”

He also emphasized that it’s everyone’s responsibility to understand the history as well as the importance of Descendant stories. He noted that the photos hanging on the walls of Hampton National Historic Site aren’t just of people who lived 150 years ago but the relatives—such as a great-great grandmother—of people alive today.

The keynote speaker was Eola Dance, the CEO and president of James Madison’s Montpelier. She spoke about Descendant engagement work at historic sites, acknowledging that there are voices missing, and the importance of collaboration, transparency, and funding to help make Descendant work sustainable.

“Descendants’ Perspectives: Interpreting Difficult Stories on Contemporary Landscapes” featured a discussion between Nancy Goldring, the president of the Northeast Towson Improvement Association, Myra “Neicy” DeShields-Moulton, an African American genealogist, and Trevon Gross, the lead pastor and founder of Hope Cathedral in Jackson, NJ.

Goldring, who is a descendant of the enslaved families who lived and worked at Hampton National Historic Site, spoke about the local and personal history that connects us in ways people don’t often think about and asked everyone in attendance to continue to work together.

“We are called to imagine and take on today a future we could have not otherwise imagined,” she said.

The event also featured representatives from Maryland colleges, universities, and historic sites who shared their work through presentations like “Historical Reckoning: Academic Institutions Address New Narratives of Their Histories” and “Legacies of Suburban Development and Urban Renewal in Baltimore County and the Effects on Descendant Communities.”

“The Descendants are not forgotten, and the past is not forgotten,” said Harner. “There were many people who wanted to be there to listen to their stories. As we listen and learn, the audience grows, making it harder to ignore stories that have been previously dismissed. These stories are also layers to our collective history—they will add nuance to the stories already being told. This should benefit all who listen.”