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History

Hampton lecture to discuss the Middle Passage and America’s ‘amnesia’ about slavery

By Staff report
Daily Press
•
A historical marker, "First Africans In Virginia," at Fort Monroe in Hampton. Already a national monument, Fort Monroe was named a UNESCO Slave Route Project site in 2021. A lecture on Monday, May 15, at the Hampton History Museum will look at the Middle Passage and the aftermath of slavery.

A historical marker, "First Africans In Virginia," at Fort Monroe in Hampton. Already a national monument, Fort Monroe was named a UNESCO Slave Route Project site in 2021. A lecture on Monday, May 15, at the Hampton History Museum will look at the Middle Passage and the aftermath of slavery. (Daniel Sangjib Min/Richmond Times-Dispatch/AP)

HAMPTON — Enslaved Africans’ history has been lost for centuries to development — buildings, landfills, parking lots, strip malls, business parks. In 1991, in New York’s Lower Manhattan, construction workers uncovered what is believed to be the largest and oldest Colonial burial ground of free and enslaved Blacks, with an estimated 15,000 remains.

This demolished history is what Chadra Pittman, founder and executive director of the local Sankofa Projects, will discuss Monday at the Hampton History Museum. The title of her talk is “Nobody Knows My Name: Remembering the Middle Passage and Confronting America’s Amnesia about Slavery and its Aftermath.’”

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According to a news release, the lecture will cover an anthropological and historical journey from Africa to Hampton, the construction of race and “the hierarchy of humanity and scientific racism.”

The event is a precursor to Sankofa’s International Day of Remembrance ceremony at 11 a.m. June 10 at Fort Monroe. The ceremony honors the millions of Africans who died while being transported to the Caribbean and Americas during the slave trade.

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If you go

When: 7 p.m. Monday

Where: Hampton History Museum, 120 Old Hampton Lane

Tickets: Free

Details: 757-727-1102; hamptonhistorymuseum.org

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