The recently completed Afterlives of Slavery Conference at Howard University in Washington, D.C. was a great success. It included three days of excellent papers on the theme “The Troubles I’ve Seen: Religious Dimensions of Slavery and Its Afterlives.” The conference was sponsored by Howard University, Princeton Theological Seminary, the National Museum and African American History and Culture, and the University of Liberia, Monrovia. A book is planned to publish the papers from the conference (more details to come) so be on the lookout for the contributions from members of the Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey! See below for more information on papers and presenters.
Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, Ph.D.
Reparations Commission Research Historian
Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey
Afterlives of Slavery Conference Presenters and Speakers (October 19-21, 2023)
Day 1: Thursday, October 19, 2023
Welcome and Greetings: Afe Adogame
Keynote Address #1: Daina Ramey Berry, University of California, Santa Barbara, “‘A Spirit too Bold and Daring for a Slave’: Lineage, Legacy, and Legitimizing History.”
Panel #1: Institutional Presidents (Gordon Mikoski presiding).
Jonathan Walton, President, Princeton Theological Seminary, USA
Julius Nelson, President, University of Liberia, Liberia
Erika Gault, Director of the Center for the Study of African American Religious Life, Smithsonian Museum for African American History and Culture, USA
Romelle Horton, President, Cuttington University, Liberia
Ben Vinson III, President, Howard University, USA
Paper Session #1A: Regions: Africa I
Okelloh Ogera (Kenya): “The Continuing Legacy of ‘Enslavement’: An Appraisal of the Experiences of the Frere Town Freed Slaves Community.”
Clement Donard Fumbo (Tanzania): “Consequences of enslavements for contemporary life in Tanzania and transnationally.”
Telesia Musili (Kenya): “Sex for Work: Unearthing Colonial Legacies of Slavery in Kericho Tea Farms in Kenya.”
Olufemi Akanji Olaleye (Nigeria): “Sounding Politics, Religions, and Enslavement of Cultural Oath-Taking Systems in Southwest Nigeria: 2015-2022.”
Paper Session #1B: Theological Issues
Matthew Elia (Venezuela/USA): “The Origins of the Christian Master: Augustine in the Afterlife of Slavery.”
Lawrence A. Whitney (USA): “Ain’t I Elect? – Protestant Logic from Slavery through Intersectionality.”
David Latimore (USA): “The Troubles I’ve Seen: Religious and Economic Dimensions of Slavery & Its Afterlives.”
Jolyon G. Pruszinski (USA): “Lex Orandi, Lex Servitutis: Slavery as Valorized in the Language of the Book of Common Prayer.”
Paper Session #1C: The Arts I (Narrative)
Jordan Burton (USA): “Non-Agency in the Anti-Black State: A Comparative Study of Method.”
David Childs (USA): “All God's Chillun Got Wings: The Theological and Sociological Meaning and Origin of the Myth of the Flying African.”
Aaron C. Waldon (Cuba): “A Strange Fruit: A Theopoetics of Colonization & Chattel Slavery in Amerika.”
Andre LePelle Keitt (USA): “Bringing the Freedom Trail to Life, For Real!”
Day 2: Friday, October 20, 2023
Keynote Address #2: Yolanda Pierce, Vanderbilt Divinity School “Laying on of Hands: Slavery’s Sins & Divine Healing.
Panel #2: “Christian Nationalism and Self-Determination in African Americans’ Participation in the African Missions Movement (1820-1925)” (William Allen presiding).
Kimberly Hill (USA), University of Texas at Dallas
Jenny McGill (USA), Indiana Wesleyan University
Andrew N. Wegmann (USA), Delta State University
Ben Wright (USA), University of Texas at Dallas
Nemata Blyden (USA), George Washington University
Paper Session #2D: Regions: Africa II
William E. Allen (Liberia): “The future is not known: The Rise of Liberia's Congoes from Enslaved and Wardship to Power.”
Ignatius Afe Oshiomogwe (Nigeria/USA): “The Afterlives of Slavery and the Religious Ethics of the Metal Peace Tree on Providence Island, Monrovia, Liberia.”
Francis Ethelbert Kwabena (Ghana/Finland): “Afterlives of Slavery and the Re-Emergence of Memory, Culture and Religion in Ghana and Beyond.”
Grace Umezurike (Nigeria): “Ohu and Osu Slavery System: It’s Nature, Dynamics, and Impact on the Contemporary Igbo Society.”
Samaila Wada Ayuba (Nigeria/USA): “The Nexus Between Formerly Enslaved Persons, Identity Negotiation and the Making of Hausa Christianity in Northern Nigeria.”
Paper Session #2E: Education Issues
Monique Jones (USA): “Sin, Shame, and the Anti-DEI Movement in Parochial Schools.”
Jairus Hallums (USA): “On the Come Up in Massa’s House: Twenty-First Century Black Educational Leader Sensemaking Under the White Gaze.”
Taulby H. Edmondson (USA): “Knights of the Lost Cause: Neo- Confederate Fraternities and the Christian Myths of the Lost Cause on Campus.”
Anthony Harris (USA): “The Land of the Free and Home of the Brave?”
Paper Session #2F: Historical Perspectives
David Childs (USA): “Jordan River I’m Bound to Cross: Researching Slavery and Religion in Northern Kentucky and Ohio.”
Ken Miyagi (Japan/USA): “Religious Discursive Resistance: Theodore Sedgwick Wright’s Anti-Colonization Thought.”
Kimberly Akano (Nigeria/USA): “Learning Africa: African Americans, Religious Education, and the Pursuit of Freedom.”
David Daniels III (USA): “Before Slave Religion: The Theological Contours of Kongolese-American Christianity, 1619-1750.”
Panel Discussion #3: Pastors Roundtable (David Latimore presiding).
Rev. Kenneth Rioland, Paramount Baptist Church, Washington D.C.
Rev. William Lamar, Metropolitan AME Church, Washington D.C.
Rev. John H. Molina-Moore, National Capitol Presbytery, Rockville, MD.
Day 3: Saturday, October 21, 2023
Keynote Address #3: Jacob Olupona, Harvard University “The Afterlife of Slavery in Africa: Unforeseen Religious and Sociocultural Consequences.”
Paper Session #3G: Regions: Caribbean, the Americas, and Europe
Jorge William Falcão Junior (Brazil): “What to do after abolition? A Presbyterian Missionary's Perspectives on Brazil and the United States of America.”
Eloy Alfaro (Ecuador): “Reasons to prefer Semi slavery. Afro- descendants who stayed on the San José - Ecuador country state, after the manumission 1850–1970.”
Selina Stone(Jamaican/Britain): “From Mis-Education to Re-Formation: Colonialism, Slavery and The Task of Decolonising Theological Education in Britain.”
Binu Varghese (India/USA): “Roots and Routes of discontent: Indian Ocean Slave trade and Indian Americans.”
Paper Session #3H: Theological Issues II
Isaac Sekyi Nana Mensah (Ghana/USA): “‘Slave Cost not a little’: Racial Baptism on Jesuit Slave Plantations in Maryland.”
Yanan Rahim Navarez Melo (Philippines/USA): “Black Body and Blood: The Eucharistic Imagination of Racial Capitalism.”
Donna J. Sloan (USA): “The Religious/Spiritual Journey of Africans in America.”
Itohan M. Idumwonyi (Nigeria/USA): “Sexploitation of Women in Slavery and Women in African Pentecostal Church in the United States.”
Paper Session #3I: The Arts II
Olukayode Odujobi (Nigeria): “From Oral Tradition to Historical National Treasure: Preservation and Documentation of Negro Spirituals from 1867 to 2007.”
Emily Pruszinski (USA): “Ethical Challenges for the Black Christ in White Church Iconography: Problematizing Jeannine Baker-Fletcher's ‘Ghostly Grace.’”
Janice A. McLean-Farrell (Jamaica/USA): “Singing Songs of Freedom to exorcise the demons: Interrogating the relationship between Caribbean Christianity, U.S. Hegemony and the Status Quo.”
Anna Stamborski (USA): “Who Defines? Who Decides?: How Black Congregants Define ‘Antiracism’ and Role of the Black Church in Antiracist Efforts”
Paper Session #3J: Contemporary Issues
Richard X, III (USA): “‘It look like a Slave Ship in There’: Rikers Island as the Afterlife of Slavery.”
Evan Dietrich Gosen (USA): “Punishment Obsession: The American Criminal Legal System as a Vestige of Enslavement Ideology.”
Nosizwe Breaux-Abdur-Rahman: “Race, Culture and Islam: Indigenous African American Muslim and Non-Indigenous Muslim Relationships.”
Michael Brandon McCormack (USA): “Original Sin or Exotic Notions? Mitch McConnell, 1619, and the Afterlives of Slavery.”
Panel Discussion #4: “Whitewashing Ancient Slavery and its Modern Legacies” (Frederick Ware presiding).
Chance Bonar, Tufts University
Mónica Rey, Boston University
Ella Karev, Mónica Rey
Ericka Dunbar, Baylor University
Kevin Burell, Wilfrid Laurier University
End of Program
