The Institute launched its webinar offerings in the Spring of 2021 with “I Shall Tell the Truth” a 2-part webinar series on Moses Roper ( 1815-1819) The webinars also kicked off a new CFI initiative, (see below) “The Moses Roper Project” The two webinars are available now as recordings. To access them, please email: [email protected]. The webinars were made possible by a generous grant from North Carolina Humanities, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities whose mission is to: connect North Carolinians with cultural experiences that spur dialogue, deepen human connections, and inspire community.
The first webinar recording, “I Shall Tell the Truth: Moses Roper, U.S. Slavery and the African-American Narrative Tradition” features the leading scholar of African American literature with a specialty in North American Slave narratives, Dr. William L. Andrews, E. Maynard Adams Distinguished Professor of English Emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The program provides the context for an understanding of U.S. slavery, the rise of the African American slave narrative, as well as a helpful framework for thinking about and teaching American slavery. Dr. Andrews also introduces the life of Moses Roper, including his experiences in the South as a freedom seeker and fugitive, up to the 1837 publication of Mr. Roper’s Narrative of the Adventures and Escape of Moses Roper in London.
The second webinar recording, “I Shall Tell the Truth: Moses Roper, a Transatlantic Advocate for Freedom” features Dr. Hannah-Rose Murray, a professor of African American history at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. She has extensively researched Roper’s anti-slavery career in Great Britain and beyond. Her session explores the revolutionary life of Roper, his various performances and lectures on the British stage, how he named and shamed his former enslavers, and how he insisted on telling the unvarnished truth about slavery’s brutality. His speeches ignited a backlash that forced him to constantly fight for his survival in a transatlantic racist society. Dr. Murray’s webinar features key documents like slave narratives, flyers, letters, and poetry, all of which Roper used to campaign for the end of slavery.
Free lesson plans and instructional materials related to the Moses Roper webinars are available HERE.
To access Webinars 1. and 2. CLICK HERE. Password is: (All lower case): caswellcounty
This webinar made possible by a NC Cares Humanities Relief Grant awarded by NC Humanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
