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2014 Schedule

All events on Thursday occur at McGrew Towers Hampton University, Hampton, VA
All events on Friday occur at the Norfolk State Student Center in Norfolk, VA

Thursday, September 18th Friday, September 19th Saturday, September 20th
8:00 a.m. Bus transportation begins from parking areas and Norfolk State University to Hampton University
9:00 a.m. Registration
9:30 a.m. Opening Session

  • Greetings and Welcome
    • Cassandra Newby-Alexander, Conference Chair and Director of the Joseph Jenkins Roberts Center for African Diaspora Studies, Norfolk State University
    • Eric Claville, Director of the Civil Rights Institute and Assistant Professor of Political Science and History, Hampton University
    • The Honorable Mamie Locke, Honorary Co-Chair
    • The Honorable George Wallace, Mayor of Hampton
10:00 a.m. “Writing the History of Africa and Its Diaspora: Interpretations and Contestations”
Michael Gomez, Professor of History and Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, New York University

Introduction by William Alexander, Professor of History, Norfolk State University
10:45 a.m.
Panel A1: Deconstructing the Complicated History of Native Americans
Moderator: Kay Lewis, Assistant Professor, Norfolk State University

  • Ashley Barnett, Old Dominion University, “Captive Corn”
  • Page Laws, Norfolk State University, “Pocahontas versus Tituba – Round II: Whitening and Blackening America’s Mythic Foremothers”
  • James E. Seelye, Jr., Kent State University at Stark, “Native American Lessons from Jamestown: Was it Genocide?”
 Panel A2: Hampton History Museum Panel, “…the still small voice of conscience.”
Moderator: Stephanie Richmond, Assistant Professor, Norfolk State University

  • Maureen Elgersman Lee, Hampton University, “Unyielding Spirits: Black Women and Slavery in Early Canada and Jamaica”
  • Antonio Bly, Appalachian State University, “Wheatley’s Nsibidi: Authorial Control as Voice in Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral”
12:15 p.m. Lunch Break
1:15 p.m. “Making Native Space in American Literature”
Lisa Brooks, Associate Professor of English and American Studies, Amherst College and Co-chair, Five College Native American Indian Studies Certificate Program

Introduction by Drew Lopenzina, Professor of Early American and Native American Literature, Old Dominion University
1:45 p.m.
Panel B1: Intersections of Culture

Moderator: Khadijah Miller, Associate Professor and Department Chair of History & Interdisciplinary Studies, Norfolk State University

  • Rebecca Hooker, Virginia Wesleyan College, “Translating ‘People of Color:’ David Walker and William Apess”
  • Martha Katz-Hyman, Curator, Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, “‘In the Middle of This Poverty Some Cups and a Teapot’: The Material Culture of Slavery in Eighteenth-Century Tidewater Virginia”
  • Tiara Davis, Norfolk State University, “Race and the Law: Becoming the Exception to the Rule in Colonial Virginia”
 Panel B2: Charting the World of Early Americans

Moderator: Patrick Mbajekwe, Associate Professor of History, Norfolk State University

  • Frankie Hammonds, Jr., Regent University, “‘Letters From Ma’: A Primary Source Analysis of Seventeenth Century Familial Correspondence between Britain and the Virginia Colony”
  • Leah Thomas, Independent Scholar, “Reading John Smith’s 1606 Map of Virginia as a Native American Text”
  • Emily M. Rose, Independent Scholar, “Viscounts in Virginia: a Proposal to Create American Noblemen (1619)”
3:15 p.m. Break
3:30 p.m. “Did God Bless Slavery? The Use of Religion in Proslavery Thought, 1630-1860”
Paul Finkelman, Senior Fellow, Penn Program on Democracy, Citizenship, and Constitutionalism, University of Pennsylvania and Scholar in-Residence, National Constitution Center, Philadelphia, PA

Introduction by Eric Claville, Director of the Civil Rights Institute and Assistant Professor of Political Science and History, Hampton University
4:00 p.m Traditional African Drumming Procession by The Sankofa Projects, accompanied by Beauty for Ashes Contemporary School of Dance and Riddick Dance
4:30 p.m Being American: What is Your True Identity?
Sankofa Project drumming and dance presentation

Spoken Word Program with the National Park Service, New Bedford Whaling Youth Ambassadors, the City of Hampton Performing Arts Program, and Calvary Revival Church

Spoken Word Invitational Program and Awards Ceremony for recipients from K-12 students and College Students
7:00 p.m. Reception at Hampton University Museum and Archives following awards ceremony for Spoken Word contest recipients
7:30 p.m. Return to hotel and parking areas

 

All events on Thursday occur at McGrew Towers, Hampton University in Hampton, VA
All events on Friday occur at the Norfolk State Student Center in Norfolk, VA

Thursday, September 18th Friday, September 19th Saturday, September 20th
8:30 a.m. Bus transportation begins from hotels and parking areas to the Student Center at Norfolk State University
9:00 a.m. Registration
9:30 a.m. Opening
Greetings and Welcome

  • Dr. Cassandra Newby-Alexander, Conference Chair and Director of the Joseph Jenkins Roberts Center for African Diaspora Studies, Norfolk State University
  • Eric Claville, Director of the Civil Rights Institute, Hampton University
  • The Honorable Algie T. Howell, Jr., Honorary Co-Chair
  • Belinda Anderson, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, Norfolk State University
10:00 a.m.
Panel A1: “African American Culture and the Quest for Empowerment”
Moderator: Charles Ford, Professor of History, Norfolk State University

  • Kay Wright Lewis, Norfolk State University, “‘This Crime Against Humanity’: Racial Extermination and The Power of Black Manhood”
  • James Padilioni, Jr., College of William and Mary, “‘Embracing What has Always Been ours to Begin With’: Banjos, Bluegrass, and Southern Blackness”
  • Jamie Warren, Indiana University Department of History, “Rethinking Slave Funerals and the Politics of Resistance”
 Panel A2: “History by Hollywood: The Mangled Reality of Early American Life and Culture”
Panelists include:

  • William Hart, Norfolk State University
  • Cathy M. Jackson, Norfolk State University
  • Page Laws, Norfolk State University
  • Lorene M. Wales, Regent University
 Panel A3: “Memory, Culture, and Identity”
Moderator: Jody Allen, Assistant Professor of History, College of William and Mary

  • William Wiggins, CEO Cliosult, “Africans and Native American Indians in 17th Century English North America: Parallels and Juxtapositions”
  • Jason Sawyer, Norfolk State University, “Grassroots Organizing for Community Memory: History, Post-Colonialism, and Urban Removal”
  • Angela Shuttlesworth, Norfolk State University, “‘Love is What We Do’: Proposing Reciprocal Research to Empower Black Families”
11:30 a.m. “What Has Been the Cost of Gangster Rap? What History and Social Research Have to Say”
Benjamin Bowser, Professor Emeritus, Department of Sociology and Social Services, California State University East Bay

Introduction by William Ward, Professor Emeritus of History, Norfolk State University
12:15 p.m. Lunch Break
1:30 p.m. The Diaspora of Dance
Moderator: Tarin Hampton, Associate Professor of Dance, Norfolk State University

  • Virginia Johnson, Artistic Director, Dance Theatre of Harlem
    “A Repertoire that Speaks American: Forty-Five Years of the Dance Theatre of Harlem”
  • Glendola Mills-Parker, Associate Professor of Health and Physical Education, Morgan State University
    “Dance as Text: The Emergence of Early American Dance Formations”
  • Kariamu Welsh, Professor and the Department of Dance Chairperson at Boyer College of Music and Dance, Temple University
    “The Dancing Ground in Early America: Field Hollers, Pinksters and the Ring Shout”
2:45 p.m.
Panel B1: Foodways, Disease, and Material Culture in Colonial America
Moderator: Jelmer Vos, Assistant Professor, African History, Old Dominion University

  • Ywone Edwards-Ingram, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and Department of Architectural and Archaeological Research, “Slave Foodways and Medicinal Practices in Colonial Virginia”
  • Rosalie Kiah, Norfolk State University, “Disease and the Transatlantic Trade”
  • Tomiko Shine, University of Maryland Baltimore County, “‘Lest We Never Forget’: Construction/Reconstruction of Memory and African/Black Identity through Material Culture”
 Panel B2: Mirror, Mirror: The Big Screen Glorification of the Wilmington Massacre
Panelists include:

  • James Curiel, Norfolk State University
  • Robert Perkins, Norfolk State University
  • Mike McMullen, University of Houston, Clearlake
 Panel B3: Teaching Early Colonial History
Panelists include:

  • Andy Mink, Teacher Specialist
  • Helen Martin, Secondary Teacher, Maury High School
  • Stephanie Richmond, Assistant Professor of History, Norfolk State University
  • Matthan Wilson, Secondary Teacher, Woodside High School
4:15 p.m. “The Culinary Dynamics of Natives and Newcomers: Is Colonization Different?”
Donna Gabaccia, Professor of History, University of Toronto

Introduction by Delores B. Phillips, Assistant Professor, Postcolonial Literature and Theory Department of English, Old Dominion University
5:00 p.m. Educational Interpretive Session – “Foodways and the Diaspora in Colonial America”
Harold Caldwell, African American History Interpreter at Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

Introduction by Maura Hametz, Professor of History and Graduate Program Director, Old Dominion University
6:15 p.m. Presentation by Vincent Schilling and presentation by Native American Dance and Drumming Groups
6:45 p.m. Being American: What is Your True Identity?Spoken Word Program with the National Park Service, New Bedford Whaling Youth Ambassadors, the City of Hampton Performing Arts Program, and Calvary Revival Church

Spoken Word Invitational Program and Awards Ceremony for recipients from secondary-level and college Students
8:15 p.m. Reception at Norfolk State University Student Center following awards ceremony for Spoken Word contest recipients
8:45 p.m. Return to hotel and parking areas

Thursday, September 18th Friday, September 19th Saturday, September 20th
8:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. Waterways to Freedom Tour of Historic Hampton

Tours will be led by Calvin Pearson, Eola Dance, Michael Cobb, and Cassandra Newby-Alexander
8:30 a.m. Guided tour will begin at the Hampton History Museum. Guests will be taken on a tour of the Contraband Exhibit at the Museum, introducing them to the history of Hampton and its later involvement with the contraband camps.
9:00 a.m. Guests will depart the Museum on buses and taken to Fort Monroe where they will be directed to viewing the site of Fort Algernon, the 1619 Landing site, Headquarters No. 1, the Casemate Museum, and other relevant Civil War sites.
10:30 a.m. Guests will board the Miss Hampton for a tour of Fort Wool. This site was previously called the “Rip Raps” and was used as an inspection station for officials looking for fugitive slaves during the antebellum period. Lunch will be provided.
2:00 p.m. Guests will journey to the campus of Hampton University where they will view Emancipation Oak, the Red Cottage, and the Hampton University Museum. (We had someone read the Emancipation Proclamation at the Oak for a special presentation.
3:30 p.m. Guests will depart Hampton University and then taken to view the historic cemeteries and the archeological site of the Grand Contraband camp in downtown Hampton.
The tour will conclude at the Hampton History Museum at 4:30 p.m.

Participation in the tour will provide an opportunity to receive academic credit through a special 3-hour undergraduate course (an additional $399 for the course) or Continuing Education Credits (CEU) (8 hours – $120) for teachers.