Past Events

I'll be at this event to share my research on western Maryland's African-American families. My table will also feature how Hood College students have been working with AARCH to preserve its archives. AARCH sponsors this annual fair where individuals, families, schools, churches and other organizations present table displays of photographs, documents, and artifacts. Fair visitors have the opportunity to:      • Connect with other researchers and see what they've discovered      • Learn the history of Frederick County’s African…

Many cemeteries have been abandoned over the years, and black cemeteries have been especially vulnerable to deliberate erasure. This 15-minute talk will examine the fate of three local African American cemeteries that were built over in the twentieth century, how two of them have recently been remembered and memorialized, and what might be done about the third. The cemeteries featured in the talk will be Laboring Sons and Greenmount in Frederick, and Halfway near Hagerstown. Pizza will be served. On…

Focusing on African American civilians in western Maryland and nearby areas, this talk will explore the experiences of men and women of color, both enslaved and free, during the American Civil War. What did the war mean to them? How did they participate in it? What opportunities and dangers did it bring? The lecture will also look briefly at the more than one hundred black men from Washington County who served in the Union Army.

In this free online talk, I'll be tracing the history of a lost African American burial ground in downtown Hagerstown, MD. The Ebenezer or Bethel cemetery dates from at least the 1840s and was the main cemetery for Hagerstown's 19th-century black community, but today no sign of it is left. What happened to this graveyard, and to the human remains buried there? I'll tell the story and try to answer the questions. Use this Zoom link to hear the talk,…