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  • HOME
  • ABOUT US
  • REVOLUTIONARY WRITERS
  • UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
  • MAPPING SLAVERY NEWARK
  • VIRTUAL EXHIBITION
  • STAY THE BALLANTINE HOUSE
  • CONNECT WITH US
  • RESOURCES
  • INSTAGRAM
  • DONATE
  • EVENT REGISTRATION

Newark

Noelle Lorraine Williams

ABOUT

About black power! 19th Century

Black Power! 19th Century is a multimedia project by Noelle Lorraine Williams that combines archival research, public engagement, art and writing to present African American stories of freedom and Newark's Black Liberation Heritage.

ABOUT

About NOELLE LORRAINE WILLIAMS

Noelle Lorraine Williams is an artist, historian and public humanities professional.  

ABOUT

Black Power 19th! Century Projects

black power 19th Century EXhibition

In 2021, The Newark Public Library received a project grant from the New Jersey Historical Commission, a division of the Department of State for this exhibition.  The library received a grant from PNC Foundation for their Black History Celebration.


The historical re-creation videos were funded by the  2020 City of Newark's Creative Catalyst Fund in partnership with Newark Arts. 


The recreation photos of sites on the Rutgers Campus was funded by a Rutgers University - Newark American Studies Public Humanities grant.


Check out the Virtual Exhibition 

CURATOR, RESEARCHER AND PROGRAM MANAGER

Noelle Lorraine Williams 

SUPERVISING SCHOLAR | EXHIBITION

Dr. James Amemasor 

RUTGERS UNIVERSITY - NEWARK AMERICAN STUDIES PROGRAM ADVISORS

Dr. Melissa Cooper,  Dr. Mary Rizzo and Dr. Ruth Feldstein

THANK YOU TO PUBLIC AND INDEPENDENT ARCHIVES, ARCHIVISTS, LIBRARIANS AND COLLEAGUES

Old Newark.com

Newark Archives Project

Dr. James Amemasor  

Beth Zak-Cohen

Tom Ankner

Greg Guderian 

Dale Colston

Ingrid Betancourt


INSTITUTIONS

Newark Public Library Administration

Newark Public Library Charles F. Cummings New Jersey Information Center

Rutgers University American Studies Public Humanities 

New Jersey State Archives

Presbyterian Historical Society 

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

James Brown African American Room at The Newark Public Library


Thank you to the artists, MEDIA PRODUCTION CREW AND DESIGNERS

Kay the Kreator, Gold Standard Productions Team 

Khali Raymond

Jan‎ėtza Maria Miranda 

Sharon Davis 

Special thanks to Grace Church in Newark and Reverend Brent Bates

Eula Lovett

Chris Thomas 

Adrienne Wheeler

Jillian Rock

Linda Lobdell

Amanda Klein

Our Partners

Projects

Inspire! Newark's Underground Railroad and mapping slavery Exhibition

This pop-up exhibition Inspire! Newark's Underground Railroad at the Newark Public Library was curated on the occasion of the creation of the monument Shadow of a Face, A Harriet Tubman Monument by Nina Cooke John in March 2023.

  

The Harriet Tubman Monument was commissioned by the City of Newark and by the order of the Honorable Mayor Ras J. Baraka. fayemi shakur, Arts and Cultural Affairs Director for the City of Newark, oversaw the project. Many thanks to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for funding this exhibition. 


Inspire! Newark’s Underground Railroad 

Like Harriet Tubman, Newark’s Underground Railroad activists’ courageous fight against 

slavery—despite entrenched interests in the institution in the city—inspired Black and 

multiracial civil rights activism



Mapping Slavery Newark

A map of some of the countless streets, buildings, and people connected to slavery in Newark curated by Black Power! 19th Century by Noelle Lorraine Williams.

CURATOR

Noelle Lorraine Williams 

Consultant

Dr. James Amemasor 

THANK YOU TO PUBLIC AND INDEPENDENT ARCHIVES, ARCHIVISTS, LIBRARIANS AND COLLEAGUES

Old Newark.com

Newark Archives Project

Dr. James Amemasor  

Contributing ARTISTS

Margie "Mia X" Johnson, Poet

Stafford Woods, Photographer

Jillian Rock, Photographer

John Matturi, Photographer

Cesar Melgar, Photographer

Tanisha Best, Photographer

COLLABORATORS

Nina Cooke John 

City of Newark/fayemi shakur 

Newark Public Library Administration

Newark Public Library Charles F. Cummings New Jersey Information Center

New Jersey State Archives

Presbyterian Historical Society 

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

James Brown African American Room at The Newark Public Library


Projects

Newark Artist Collaboration - Westinghouse Site Intervention

 Monumental Newark: Reimagined Sites of 19th Century Newark
Black Abolitionist Historical Monuments Reimagined


Located on what used to be known as Plane Street, where, in the nineteenth century, free and enslaved African Americans fought for their rights. Icons like Frederick Douglass delivered speeches to the Black community here, and Samuel Cornish, co-editor of the country’s first African American newspaper, worked as an activist and pastor. Hannah Mandeville, freed from her enslaver in Jersey City, moved to Newark to become a member and fundraiser at the Plane Street Colored Church on this street. Angelina Grimke, a legendary anti-slavery feminist, and author Harriet Beecher Stowe’s brother, Charles Beecher, attended anti-slavery meetings only blocks away. Plane Street was the heart of the free Black community in Newark. 

ARTIST

Noelle Lorraine Williams 

CURATOR

Rebecca Jampol | Audible 

Black Revolutionary Writers Fighting Colonialism: Queen Latifah, Samuel Cornish, and Amiri and Amina

 

INTRODUCTION 

“Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” - Writer Chinua Achebe’s recollection of an African Proverb 


 

The 17th and 18th century colonization and enslavement of Native American and Black nations by Europeans is the foundation of Newark's history. Thankfully, Black revolutionary writers in Newark from the 1800s to today fought this attempt at the total control of Black lives. 

Colonialism works by forcing underground the histories that fight its legitimacy. Recently, a former church site on the Rutgers-University Newark campus revealed hundreds of thousands of objects and dozens of graves paved over with concrete. This exhibition includes some of these artifacts. Can these violently disposed of objects tell the stories of other violently treated histories like Newark’s first Black liberation community? 


Check out the exhibition page here .

CURATOR, RESEARCHER AND PROGRAM MANAGER

Noelle Lorraine Williams 

THANK YOU Rutgers University -Newark Paul Robeson Galleries

Anonda  Bell 

Karen Bernard


Thank you to the artists, MEDIA PRODUCTION CREW AND DESIGNERS

Artists  Reginald Blanding  

Jerry Gant (1961 – 2018)  

Marc Lorenc, Ph.D, Unstuck in Time Gaming  

Stafford Woods  

Noelle Lorraine Williams, Black Power! 19th Century

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