The Middle Peninsula African-American Genealogical and Historical Society will hold its monthly virtual meeting at 11 a.m. Saturday. The program includes a talk by Dr. Douglas W. Sanford titled “Interpreting the Evidence for African American History: Virginia’s Slave Quarters and Free Blacks on the Middle Peninsula in 1860.”
The presentation will address two facets of Virginia’s African American history and heritage during the antebellum period, the study of housing associated with enslaved people and the nature of free black communities on the Middle Peninsula, a release said. Surviving slave quarters across the state offer a means to characterize both the management practices of white enslavers and the living conditions for enslaved people in rural and urban settings.
The talk will highlight results from the Virginia Slave Housing Project, a long-term research effort to document, interpret, and help preserve these critical resources of African American heritage, the release said.
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