Legends about historic New Hampshire typically omit people of color, from its colonization through the 20th century, creating the impression that this always has been a “lily-white” state. In observation of Black History Month, Cunningham will recount some of the true stories that illustrate NH’s Black history, about African children who were imported to work in the homes of colonial New Hampshire’s founders; about 20 African men who petitioned the NH Legislature to end slavery in 1770; about the state’s first African American congregation and how it has survived for more than a century; about black and white activists who have struggled to eliminate de facto segregation from what Martin Luther King, Jr. referred to as “the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.”
Presentation by Valerie Cunningham, historic preservationist; formerly coordinator of Black Heritage Partnerships at the University of New Hampshire.