Blacks' hidden history in N.E. coming to light

Scholars, teachers, and amateur historians will gather at the University of New Hampshire this week to discuss historical contributions of the least visible members of society -- black New Englanders -- and guide people to do their own research.

"It's a hidden history, rarely referred to, but we've been here a long time," said Valerie Cunningham, director of the Portsmouth Black Heritage Trail.

The Center for New England Culture at UNH will host "Black New England: Visible Lives, Remembered Places," tomorrow and Saturday.

James T. Campbell, associate professor of American Civilization, Africana Studies, and History at Brown University, will be the keynote speaker at the conference, which is designed to foster a dialogue about the black experience in New England throughout history. He will speak tomorrow at 7 p.m. in the Memorial Union Building Theatre I.

Campbell is the author of "Songs of Zion: The African Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States and South Africa." He chaired the committee commissioned to investigate Brown University's connections to slavery. He will discuss that work in a talk called "Navigating the Past: Reflections on Brown University's Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice."

"A lot of people think we just got here, but we've been here as long as the first Europeans," said Cunningham, who will participate in a workshop about researching and teaching local black history. "We want to help people discover and tell the histories of black people in their towns."

JerriAnne Boggis, director of the Harriet Wilson Project, is a conference organizer. The project is named for the author of "Our Nig; or Sketches From the Life of A Free Black," which Boggis described as the first novel by a black American. Wilson, a native of Milford, N.H., published what historians consider an autobiographical novel in 1859.

Boggis and her group conduct black history tours of Milford and were instrumental in having a statue of Wilson raised there last year.

"We want to help people make the history visible," said Boggis.

As another example, Boggis cited the career of George Blanchard, also of Milford, who was a black landowner, a veterinary surgeon, and a Revolutionary War veteran. "He was a landowner and an important member of the community," she said. "He even donated property for the town to build a school."

Through years of painstaking research, Cunningham put together the Portsmouth Black Heritage Trail, a 24-stop self-guided tour of the port city with stops at the Negro Burial Ground and historic homes in which blacks once lived.

Cunningham said much information can be gleaned from probate records, town histories, journals, and records held by historical societies.

"We want to expose people to different avenues to pursue black history," said Boggis, who suggested census records, journals, and family genealogies as likely sources.

"It looks hard until you start digging, but there's a lot of information out there and a lot can be learned just from the houses in which peopled lived."

The conference will be held in the Memorial Union Building and Huddleston Hall on the UNH campus in Durham. A registration fee of $50 covers breakfasts and lunches and the conference packet. The event is cosponsored by the UNH Vice Provost Office/Diversity Initiatives, Black Heritage Partnerships, the African American Collection of Maine at the University of Southern Maine, Portsmouth Black Heritage Trail, the Harriet Wilson Project, and the Upper Housatonic Valley African American Heritage Trail, which stretches through Western Massachusetts into northwestern Connecticut.

For more on the conference, call 603-862-0353 or visit neculture.org/ne-identities.html.