A special community day at the New haven Museum, 115 Whitney Avenue, will be held Saturday, February 15, 2025, offering tours and conversation around the New Haven Museum’s exhibition, “Shining Light on Truth: New Haven, Yale, and Slavery,” prior to its closing on Saturday, March 1, 2025. Presented by the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale Library, the exhibition highlights the essential role of enslaved and free Black people in New Haven and at Yale.
Visitors will be encouraged to tour the exhibition beginning at 12:00 p.m., with members of the exhibition team available for questions and conversation. Visitors may also join any of the related programs in the New Haven Museum auditorium:
1:00 p.m. – Welcome and remarks
Curators Michael Morand and Charles Warner and Designer David Jon Walker will offer brief reflections on the exhibition and its impact since it went on view to the public in February 2024 and share some thoughts about the ongoing work of engaging the history and legacy of New Haven, Yale, and slavery.
1:30 p.m. – Film screening: “What Could Have Been”
A special screening of the short documentary film about the proposal for America’s first HBCU in New Haven, Connecticut, 1831, followed by a Q&A and conversation with the production team.
3:00.p.m. – Ubuntu Storytellers: Sweeps and Scholars
Story artist Denise Manning Keyes Page will share her experience of discovering her maternal family ancestry. Her journey was challenged by factors including orphancy, mixed ancestry, and the interchange of family first names.
Despite the obstacles, and thanks to listening curiously, research, intuition, and a heaping dose of luck, Page was able to unearth a pre-1850 history about an enslaved ancestor and his New Haven and Yale student descendants. Some of Page’s “luck” is attributed to the research resources of the Beinecke Library and is reflected in the “Shining Light on Truth: New Haven, Yale, and Slavery” exhibition at the New Haven Museum. Page’s 90-minute presentation begins with her personal story, “Mariah,” followed by an opportunity for audience engagement in reflecting on one’s own family story and available lists of nontraditional resources to continue or begin one’s own family history.
Shining Light on Truth: New Haven, Yale, and Slavery,” is presented by the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library and Yale University Library. The exhibition complements the publication of the book “Yale and Slavery: A History”(Yale University Press, 2024) by David W. Blight with the Yale and Slavery Research Project. It draws from the research project’s key findings in areas such as the economy and trade, Black churches and schools, the 1831 Black college proposal, and memory and memorialization in the 20th century and today. The exhibition has a special focus on stories of Black New Haven, including early Black students and alumni of Yale.
The exhibition features archival images of materials from Beinecke and other collections and connects to items in the New Haven Museum collections. It introduces visitors to some of the unheralded builders of Yale. It celebrates early Black writers such as Jupiter Hammon, Jacob Oson, and William Grimes, and showcases women such as Mary Ann Goodman, whose generosity opened paths for Black students at Yale, as well as the women who were local pioneers in Black education early in the 19th century.
Admission to the New Haven Museum remains free during the show’s run, made possible by Yale University.