Tags: slavery

On “Freedom’s Eve,” or the eve of January 1, 1863, the first Watch Night services took place. On that night, enslaved and free African Americans gathered in churches and private homes all across the country awaiting news that the Emancipation Proclamation had taken effect. At the stroke of midnight, prayers were answered as all enslaved people in Confederate States were declared legally free. Union soldiers, many of whom were black, marched onto…

In the tradition of recognizing and celebrating Americans and American history, we observe Juneteenth today. Two months after the American Civil War ended and two years after President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, U.S. Major General Gordon Granger, newly arrived with 1,800 men in Texas, ordered that “all slaves are free” in Texas and that there would be an “absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between…

Two Athens historic sites will host the second annual event addressing the history of slavery at the University of Georgia this year. “History of Slavery at the University of Georgia: Tell the Whole Story” will take place Saturday, May 21, from 10 am to 9:15 pm, at the Brooklyn Cemetery and Morton Theatre, with this year’s focus on the Athens community. “We are excited that this year’s event is community-focused with programming…

Jennifer Palmer, associate professor of history, has been awarded a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities for 2022. The award was announced in January and will provide course release for a full academic year. Seventy-three fellowships were awarded by the NEH this year, among 208 grants worth $24.7 million for humanities scholarship and programming across the country: Palmer will use the fellowship for…

Chana Kai Lee, associate professor in the department of history, has been awarded a 2021-22 Warren Center Faculty Fellowship at Harvard University. The Charles Warren Center, Harvard’s research center for United States history, invited applications for a workshop on Slavery and the Universities. The workshop will bring together scholars to systematically reflect on how such research can be elevated by considering how it contributes to…

Cindy Hahamovitch, B. Phinizy Spalding Distinguished Professor of Southern History in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, has been awarded a 2021 Fellowship by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Hahamovitch is one of 184 artists, writers, scholars and scientistschosen through a rigorous peer-review process from almost 3,000 applicants. Guggenheim Fellowships are intended for individuals who have already demonstrated…

Selection for fellowships, nimble expertise in the confines of social distancing and new books highlight our congratulations to Franklin faculty this month. Well done! The Institute of Bioinformatics Collective Behavior Symposium on March 20 successfully transitioned to a virtual experience for participants on very short notice. The original plan was to host 150 people, but 407 “showed up," said Jonathan Arnold,…

Human trafficking involves recruitment, harboring or transporting people into a situation of exploitation through the use of violence, deception or coercion and forcing victims to work against their will. A process of enslavement,  trafficking affects millions of men, women, and children – including in the United States. It can happen in any community and victims can be any age, race, gender, or nationality, and now…

The University of Georgia has awarded a grant to a 22-member UGA academic team to study the history of slavery at UGA from the institution’s founding in 1785 until the end of the Civil War in 1865. The research team—which spans multiple schools, colleges and other units across the university—will conduct a multidisciplinary study of enslaved African Americans who labored on the UGA campus. In September, the team submitted a proposal, which was…

Researchers at UGA formed an international consortium, the Africa Programming and Research Initiative to End Slavery (APRIES) that received a $4 million award from the U.S. Department of State to reduce the prevalence of human trafficking in targeted communities of West Africa. The project is overseen by the State Department’s Office to Combat and Monitor Trafficking in Persons and is part of its Program to End Modern Slavery: Human…

Additionally, methods or concepts from this research may be applicable to capturing other radioactive materials, cleaning nuclear waste materials, cleaning nuclear waste environments such as rivers and lakes, removing radioactive vapors released in the atmosphere during nuclear accidents like Fukushima, or capturing non-radioactive contaminants found in the semiconductor industry. Nanoscience, she added, provides a way to use nature’s materials…