Endorsements
“Like many African Americans my family arrived in Washington DC during the Great Migration, one from PA and the other from Louisiana. With wonderful precision, Mark Auslander has already been able to locate my family in Southeast in 1949, as they sought to catch a piece of the ‘American Dream’” — Ibrahim Sundiata, PhD, Professor Emeritus of History, Department of History, Brandeis University
Projects
Historical justice partnerships facilitated by PHJ team members include:
Finding “Nannie.” For decades, community members in Georgetown, Washington DC, wondered about the identity of Nannie, whose headstone in the Female Union Band Society cemetery only indicated her first name and her dates, 1848-1856. Lisa Fager and Mark Auslander worked through historical records to determine Nannie’s likely identity and then reached out to her collateral relations in the greater Washington DC area, helping to resolve a mystery that was over 150 years old. Lisa and Mark published their findings in: https://southernspaces.org/2023/nannies-stone-commemoration-and-resistance/
Honoring indigenous resource management. Emily Washines has devoted her career to protecting indigenous environmental sovereignty in the Pacific Northwest, with special attention to foodways and fisherie enhancement.. In turn, as a senior official in NOAA during the Obama administration, Russell Smith fostered reconciling dialogues with indigenous fishing and whaling communities in the Pacific Northwest, while helping to secure long term indigenous rights in marine and riparian resource management. He worked closely with indigenous partners on the conservation and management of whales, honoring Native perspectives on sustainability and reciprocal relations between humans and extended webs of life on land and in the seas.
Building bridges across the generations. As Executive Director of the Black Georgetown Foundation, Lisa Fager has unearthed innumerable family history stories embedded in the sacred grounds of Mount Zion and Female Union Band Society cemeteries in Georgetown, Washington DC. Among the fascinating histories she has brought to light is that of Gracie Ann Duckett, buried in the cemetery with the inscription: ““In memory of Gracy Duckett the mother of Julia Cartwright, died July 28, 1874 Aged 83 years.” Lisa learned that Mrs. Duckett was enslaved in adjacent household of Dumbarton House, earlier known as Bellevue and Rittenhouse Place, and manumitted in the will of Lydia Whitall.
Tracing “Miss Kitty”. Since the 1850s, Black and white residents of Oxford, Georgia the birthplace of Emory University, have pondered the story of the enslaved woman remembered as “Miss Kitty”, owned by the Methodist Episcopal Bishop James Osgood Andrew, first president of the Emory Board of Trustees. Working with his students at Emory’s Oxford College, Mark Auslander established that Kitty’s actual name was “Catherine Boyd,” and traced her descendants, in time connecting with her third great granddaughters, residing in Philadelphia Pennsylvania. The descendants, Darcel Caldwell and Cynthia Caldwell Martin, visited Emory for a historic conference and welcome home interracial ceremony in 2011. Mark recounts this moving process in his book, The Accidental Slaveowner Revisiting a Myth of Race and Finding an American Family (University of Georgia Press, 2011). See: https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/remembrance-cemetery-search-accidental-slaveowner/
Restorative Justice in the Shadow of Racial Violence. For decades, silence surrounded the fate of seven African American men, brutally murdered in racial terror lynchings in October 1878 in Mount Vernon, Indiana. When local activists came together in 202 to commemorate this tragedy and honor the victims, they hoped to learn the identities of the victims’ descendants. Mark Auslander and his students at Mount Holyoke College took on the project, in time locating living descendants of the victims across the country. Following a meaningful series of interracial dialogue about memory and justice, descendants travelled in October 2023 to participate in a deeply moving memorial candlelight vigil with local allies and supporters, on the grounds of the Mount Vernon courthouse where the lynching had occurred.
[Organizations listed for identification purposes only]
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