Podcast: The 1856 Podcast: Towards Marronage and a Liberated Future
The 1856 Podcast: Towards Marronage and a Liberated Future
The 1856 project podcast situates itself against the larger discourse of our nation’s involvement with chattel slavery and abolitionist efforts. Our podcast explores local histories by interviewing descendants, community leaders, historians, activists, young scholars, artists, and writers. We discuss the involvement of the Maryland Agricultural College (MAC), now known as the University of Maryland (UMD), in the enslavement of Africans and how this history intersects with our present. The podcast investigates racialized trauma and how it has been a building block of this institution. This space is our collective dream, where our communities convene and lay the groundwork towards a marronage and a liberated future. In the spirit of our African ancestors, Ubuntu, I am because you are, and you are because I am.
Our first three podcasts include interviews detailing the launch of The 1856 project, the lasting impacts of urban renewal on the Lakeland Community, a historically Black area surrounding College Park with deeply rooted ties to some of the earliest indications of Black labor at the university, along with the author of Smashing Statues! These interviews are just our first salvo in a series of conversations that will ignite conversation, reflection, intellectual curiosity, and understanding.
Our podcast team includes Producer Manuel Mendez, PhD student, College of Information at the University of Maryland, and Graduate Assistant in Special Collections and University Archives, Co-producer, Alona Norwood, Fisher Family Fellow, Host Lae’l Hughes-Watkins, Associate Director of Engagement Inclusion and Reparative Archiving, Special Collections and University Archiving, University of Maryland Libraries, additional collaborators; Eleena Ghosh, Student Assistant, Special Collections and University Archives and Maureen Jones, former Graduate Assistant, Special Collections and University Archives.