2024 Highlights
2024 | Our 5th Anniversary | New Projects | Learning and Teaching | Our Community | Statewide Movement
New Hidden History Projects
Based on the priorities chosen by our members, we launched five new projects to delve into the hidden history of our county. Projects include:
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Map plantation sites and identify enslavers and those who were enslaved. Identify those who were enslaved in Montgomery County around 1860. Create a spreadsheet of plantations and households that held people in bondage, with a goal of building an interactive map, and of telling the stories of some of the key plantations in the area.
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Map historic Black communities. Update current maps and add to the stories of the people who founded these close-knit communities. Document the connections between those who were enslaved and the community founders.
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Collect oral histories from descendants of the historic Black communities, prioritizing elders. Interview people to capture their stories particularly from the community’s founding through the Jim Crow era. Create short videos and slide shows to share online.
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Racial covenants. Conduct webinar and workshop on how to find racial covenants in property deeds that prohibited Black people from purchasing homes in many neighborhoods. Educate the public on how these covenants and other policies, such as redlining, continue to affect housing prices and family wealth accumulation.
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Research other examples of racial violence. In addition to the three known lynchings, document other examples of racial terror and violence from our past, such as Ku Klux Klan gatherings.