Seizing Citizenship: African Americans, Colonization, and the Pursuit of Citizenship in the Antebellum United States

We invite CMCH members and visitors to join us for a brown bag lunch talk with Kevin S. Hooper, PhD Candidate of the University of Oklahoma. Kevin is a New England Regional Fellowship Consortium (NERFC) fellow who will be conducting research here this fall.

Did you know African American activists used the issue of African colonization to help support their claims to U.S. citizenship?

In this brown bag talk Kevin will explore how African American activists used the issue of African colonization to develop a galvanized national network to support their claims to U.S. citizenship.  He argues that state governments and American Colonization Society (ACS) auxiliary organizations on the state level were settler colonial enterprises that led African Americans to appeal to the federal government directly to assert their claim to U.S. citizenship. Kevin will share the results of his research at the CMCH with us during this informal presentation.

We will provide coffee and dessert; bring your lunch to enjoy during the talk. Please RSVP by Monday, October 7 by calling (860) 236-5621 x282 or emailing [email protected]. Questions? Contact Jennifer Busa, Public Programs and Special Events Coordinator, at [email protected].

Free for members, included with admission for non-members.

Image: Anti-Slavery Banner, 1835-1845, CMCH 1997.13.0