Conversations in Color: Dr. Rosanne Adderley and Leon A. Waters

1225 North Rampart Street,New Orleans LA 70116

14 September, 2022

Description

Created by the Amistad Research Center, Conversations in Color is a free public cultural series that features artists, educators and community activists in talks about their work and its impact on social change. Presented by the Amistad Research Center, in collaboration with New Orleans Airlift and Third Eye Theatre Interdisciplinary and Improvisational Performance Company, Dr. Laura Rosanne Adderley and Leon A. Waters will discuss enslaved African Charles Deslondes, who led the largest uprising by enslaved individuals in American history. Over a long period of time, the January 1811 revolutionary insurrection was prepared very slowly by Deslondes and his lieutenants. Following the Louisiana Purchase, the former colonial area known as the Louisiana Province was divided in two parts. The northern area was called Louisiana Territory; and the southern area was called Orleans Territory. New Orleans was named the territorial capital of Orleans Territory, which was under the control of the U.S. Government. The capital was headquartered at the Cabildo building in the French Quarter. Deslondes’ aim was to capture the city of New Orleans, overthrow the Orleans Territorial government of William C. C. Claiborne, and establish a second, independent, Black republic, with its own sovereign state to be governed by the newly freed Africans. This strategic aim required the military capture of the city of New Orleans. Guided by a two-prong military assault, they almost succeeded! About our presenters: Laura Rosanne Adderley is associate professor of history at Tulane University, where she is also affiliated with the Africana Studies Program and the Stone Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies. She researches and teaches in African American history, comparative African diaspora history and Caribbean history. Her main interests lie in the history of Black enslavement and its aftermath, especially in the nineteenth century. She is currently working on a book tentatively titled Practicing Emancipation: Black Lives, Atlantic Abolition, and the Everyday Politics of Freedom. With collaborative partner Nell Bolton, Adderley is also working on a public history project related to the life and work of New Orleans educator and prison reform advocate Frances Joseph Gaudet. Leon A. Waters serves as the board chair of the Louisiana Museum of African American History (LMAAH). The museum began in 2002 on the second floor of St. Augustine Catholic Church's hall in the Treme neighborhood. Hurricane Katrina delivered a blow to many of the museum board members’ homes, and thus set back the museum. Today, the board is searching for a permanent physical facility for LMAAH. As a licensed tour host, Waters has been directing tours on hidden history for 25 years and is the manager of Hidden History, L.C.C., a publishing, touring and research company. He has published one book, On to New Orleans: Louisiana’s Heroic 1811 Slave Revolt, the story of the largest revolt of enslaved individuals in the United States that happened in St. John the Baptist, St. Charles and Orleans Parishes. Waters is currently writing two books, and frequently writes articles on history. He is a frequent presenter at conferences in the United States and the Caribbean, including in Martinique, Guadeloupe and Haiti. This talk is presented as part of Liberation Vibrations: A Multidisciplinary Project by New Orleans Airlift, the Amistad Research Center, and Third Eye Theater Interdisciplinary and Improvisational Performance Company. About our presenting partners: New Orleans Airlift forges connections between people, ideas, and cultures through collaborative artworks. Since 2009, artist-led non-profit New Orleans Airlift has created genre-defying, multi-disciplinary, collaborative public art works. Airlift is best known for their flagship project, Music Box Village, permanently located in the Bywater neighborhood of New Orleans. Founded by Artistic Director and Choreographer Monique Moss, the mission of Third Eye Theatre Interdisciplinary and Improvisational Performance Company or TET is to use the arts to achieve metaphysical and spiritual liberation through the practice of Crossroads Collaboration, Trauma-Healing Channeling, and Psyche-Site-Specific Performance. The cultural performance practice is rooted in the discovery of inspiration for innovative movement, within a creative choreographic process based equally on academic research and on introspective, Improvisational exploration. This event is supported by a 2021 Rebirth grant from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. Funding for 2021 Rebirth grants has been administered by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities (LEH) and provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) as part of the American Rescue Plan (ARP) and the NEH Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan (SHARP) initiative. The views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of either the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities or the National Endowment for the Humanities.