download it for free today. c-span now. your front row seat to washington. any time, anywhere. i would like to welcome you to the third event in this year's read the revolution speakers series. i'm scott stephenson, i'm president and ceo of the museum of the american revolution. right down here in old historic philadelphia at third and chestnut streets. and it is so incredible to have a live audience back together. [ applause ] and not only that, but we are welcoming over a hundred people who are tuning in online. and they are tuning in from alabama, georgia, kentucky, california, texas, and wisconsin, in addition to our usual friends along the east coast from new england all the way down to virginia this evening. so this is fabulous, to be a hybrid event this evening. i would like to start by thanking our sponsors for this evening, the haverford trust company. haverford trust have been with the museum, dear friends and sponsors, since before the museum opened. our five-year anniversary is april 19th of this year and haverford goes even farther back than this. they've particularly been excellent partners in sponsoring the "read the revolution" series which is not just the live author talks like you're experiencing tonight but a biweekly email you can sign up for with curated excerpts from books about the american revolution. we have now done hundreds of these. if you go to the museum's website and sign up for "read the revolution," you'll get a little brain food every other week. now, a hearty thanks to two of my friends from haverford here tonight, rob styles, the vibe for business development, who i can't see through the lights there, and david peppard, frequent partner in crime here, also vice president, portfolio manager. great to see you both this evening. for a quick commercial break now, i would like to pitch to those of you either here tonight or those of you who are tuning in online, if you can't get enough revolutionary history, and can you really get enough revolutionary history? we have, during the month of march, tuesday evenings, our mrev seminar, everyday life in the revolutionary era led by the ever affable dr. tyler putman, wave, tyler. not only is he erudite and intelligence but a very affable fellow indeed. this will be a small group experience online with readings, kind of virtual tours using virtual resources from the museum, group discussions. so if you just aren't ready to go out on tuesday evenings in march as we wait to see if it will be a lion or a lamb, sign up for the amrev seminar. i also want to pause to brag for a moment. you all have heard of the prestigious webby awards. just this week the museum was honored with a silver level anthem award from the webbies. [ applause ] so 2,500 submissions from 36 countries, by the way. and so that was the silver level award. that was for our interactive experience "finding freedom." this originated as an in-gallery interactive experience that explores the lives and choices of five people of african descent who lived in virginia during the tumultuous year of 1781. with support from theal fred m. greenfield foundation, we were able to put that online. it's had over half a million page views, teachers are using it around the country and around the world. "the philadelphia business journal" awarded the museum a faces of philanthropy award. for black history month, this has been a pretty good month for recognition of all the work that the museum does all months of the year. [ applause ] now, finally i'm very excited to be able to share with those of you in the audience in person, and for those online you'll see some imagery of just a little tease of one of the museum's newest and most exciting acquisitions. we have just brought to the museum an archive of nearly 200 original revolutionary war era documents that reflect the military service of men of african and american indian descent in the continental army. so there's a real intersection with the theme and the story you'll be hearing about jeffrey brace this evening. in fact there are several documents in this archive that with a little more research may actually prove to be documents that relate to this individual. so we are just in the process of getting that collection in. we plan to digitize it. we plan to develop teacher resources, have students learning to exercise their critical thinking, to do research with primary sources. and again, to give proper recognition to men who served in the revolutionary war, who helped to establish american independence, but whose lives did not include enjoying the fruits of those promises of the declaration of independence. so much more to come on that front. and so finally, to get the evening kicked off, i'm so pleased to introduce a relatively new friend of the museum, parry moss, who is joining us remotely from san francisco. parry is the president and co-founder of a brand-new internet-based initiative called hip-hop tv. for over two decades parry has been involved in developing new media platforms and has been an industry pioneer in this area to celebrate and amplify hip-hop culture. he's also personally very deeply inspired by and a real scholar in his own right of african american history. he did his undergraduate studies at san diego state university with a ba in africana studies and continued to do work in african american history as well. he's always on the lookout for good stories. we've been talking to him about creating an innovative partnership of the museum being a content provider to develop programming that will lift up some of these stories, particularly people of african descent. parry is always on the hunt for new stories. and we just sort of accidentally learned a couple of weeks ago that he was reading "the blind african slave," the book that is the subject of our talk tonight. so we couldn't pass up the chance to welcome parry to introduce this evening's program. parry, take it away, please. >> thank you, scott, for that great introduction. good evening, everyone, and good afternoon for everyone who is in the midwest or on the east coast. you might see we still have some sunlight here in san francisco. thank you to the museum of the american revolution for this "read the revolution" series. actually one of my colleagues in grad school was a part of this series about a year ago, jessica milward. are you able to hear me? yes? fantastic. and thanks for all the work you do for the community in philadelphia and the greater, you know, u.s. and audiences around the world, bringing democracy and these great stories to bigger audiences. so as scott mentioned, i've been working in hip-hop for over 20 years. he also mentioned that i went to grad school, originally i wanted to become a professor. i studied music and culture in the diaspora and here in the u.s., african american culture. and interestingly enough, slave narratives were one of my focus. i studied other slave narratives like ellen kraft, harriet jacobs. but the jeffrey brace narrative, it was usually a footnote or it was mentioned but it wasn't read. and this is the mid-'90s, if you're wondering when. it was about the same time that dr. winter was reading that fragile copy of "the blind african slave" at the special collections of the university of vermont. so personally, this is all coming full circle for me, and i think it's pretty neat. now, one of the programs that we have at hip-hop tv that we're trying to get off the ground is project 1865 to see the truth. what we do with that is we take stories and people from the past and we use contemporary voices to bring them to contemporary audiences today. and that's one of the projects we're working with the museum on that scott mentioned. i think that's why they asked me to, you know, introduce dr. kari winter. and i was honored, and i'm excited, and, you know, once i accepted, i had to figure out how am i going to introduce dr. winter? i have been in academia for over 20 years and i haven't worked in a museum in over 20 years either. so i had a conversation with martha snyder from the museum. she said, focus on the work, because dr. winter did incredible work to bring jeffrey brace's story back to contemporary audiences. i had brunch with one of my cousins, cheryl sampson. we like to brag we have a really big family, over 300 at family reunions over the summers. she takes the pictures, the birth certificates, the death certificates, and everything else in between and she cure curates it and shares it with our family during family reunions and personal gatherings. it really reinforced all the work she does and reminded me of what martha mentioned, hey, focus on the work, because that's really the gift that dr. kari winter has given us. just to give it historical context, it reminded me of alex haley, all the work he did to tell his family's story, he was able to reconnect to his family in africa, and obviously he wrote "roots" and it became a huge movie in the '80s. and it also reminded me of the work that alice walker did to rediscover zora neal thurston, the great writer in the harlem renaissance, she was forgotten for 50 years. alice walker rediscovered her grave in florida, rediscovered all her work, now she's required reading in high schools and colleges all around the world. dr. winter is in excellent company. you know, her work on "the blind african slave" really is prodigious, from that first fragile copy that she read in the mid-'90s at the special collections of the university of vermont, she began to work with other scholars, other teachers. she was awarded grants to dig deeper into reintroducing or figuring out how to reintroduce jeffrey brace. she traveled to barbados, london, and libraries and collections and universities across the country. and then ultimately she found jeffrey brace's family in vermont. and that includes rhonda, who is on the program tonight. dr. winter, she's a historian, she's a literary critic, she's a screenwriter, she's a professor of american studies, the department of global gender studies at the university of buffalo. she's also served as the director of their gender studies institute. she completed her ph.d. in english at the university of minnesota. and she has a ba in english and history at indiana university. you probably know she's written books on slavery, gender, and history. and she's published countless scholarly articles, reviews, keynote addresses. she's lectured across the country. and you can tell we're really lucky to have her tonight. before i pass the mic to dr. winter, know that her work really, it's just not a historical body of work. it's so relevant to today, as we confront the disruption with books being burned, critical thought being washed away, and democracy literally and figuratively under siege. so i want to conclude and hand over everything to dr. winter, by taking one of her quotes and sharing it with you, that i found on the youtube page of the university of buffalo. when we study history, we often find that art is on the side of the oppressor. the focus of my research and my work as an artist is to discover and create stories that are on the side of democracy and human liberation. everyone please join me in welcoming dr. kari winter. [ applause ] >> wow, thank you so much, parry, and thank you so much, scott, and everyone, hannah, mike, everyone who's made this visit possible. i've really been blown away, as has rhonda, in touring the museum today. it's incredibly inspiring. and thank you, all of you, for coming, both online and those of you in the room today. in this tremendously important work you're doing here at the museum, it reminded me of this quotation from the scholar robert hoke harrison who observes, as human beings, we are born of the dead, of the regional ground they occupy, of the languages they inhabited, of the worlds they brought into being, of the many institutional, legal, cultural, and psychological legacies that through us connect them to the unborn. the central tool of enslavers and other tyrants is to attempt to sever the oppressed from their ancestors and from their descendants. for this reason, oppressed people continue to be dishonored and erased in death just as they were in life. the struggle for public memory is integral to our ongoing struggle to realize the illusive dreams of the american revolution. how far we have to go can be glimpsed in the fact that according to "the washington post," of 5,917 recorded monuments in the united states that mention the civil war, only 1% also mention slavery. as of 2011 -- uh-oh. oh, okay. sorry. what's on my screen looks different than what you're seeing. i'm not used to that. okay. as of 2011, less than 8% of the public outdoor sculptures of individuals in the united states were of women and none of the 44 national memorials managed by the national park service specifically focuses on women and their accomplishments. museums such as this one are crucial to the process of building democracy, because of the deeply researched, creative, and inspiring ways in which you are conveying complex truths about where we have come from and helping to light a path forward. so thank you. for the past many years, rhonda and i have been working with a group of descendants of 18th and 19th century antiracist writers and activists to promote justice through public history. these remarkable women have forged connections with their ancestors in diverse ways. for example, susie ryan, who is a descendant of venture smith, who published his life story in 1798 in connecticut, she's drawn to quilting and cooking. she tells the story, she's also traveled to west africa, connecting with her ancestors' stories. and right there in that picture, you see one of her very small quilts which she worked with an anthropologist to find out what was the original land that venture smith owned. and that's a quilt representing the land in connecticut which the family still visits. and she's the president of sisters in stitches joined by the cloth, which is an african american quilting guild focused on storytelling. they also public a cookbook and tell stories through recipes. regina mason, a relentless researcher and a gifted storyteller, has coco-edited a book, the first fugitive slave narrative published in 1825. she also managed with no background in film, she managed to produce a major documentary about her ancestor and her quest to find him. lynn jackson, a descendant of dred scott, had the vision and persistence to commission and install a statue in st. louis honoring her ancestors and has worked tirelessly to foster justice through dialogues between descendants of enslavers and descendants of the enslaved. i hope that glimpsing their work and reflecting on the life of jeffrey brace will inspire you to think about who you claim as your ancestors and why. ralph ellison observed, while one can do nothing about choosing one's relatives, one can as artists choose one's ancestors. in other words, the process of creation involves choice, intentionality. we stake claims to the past by selecting who and what to remember to attend to, to dialogue with, to care about. toni morrison in her especially i epigraph underscores about who to identify with, quoting romans 925, morrison declares, i will call them my people which were not my people and her beloved which was not beloved. in the spirit of morrison's memorial to "beloved," i in invite you to remember jeffrey brace. on a sunny day in 1758, he celebrated his 16th birthday by swimming and playing water sports with 13 of his friends in the niger river. when they ascended the river bank to head home a party of slave catchers with dogs sprang from the forest. they were secured with ropes, they gagged them and tossed them into a small boat that stank of filth and dead fish. after a four-day journey they reached the atlantic ocean and transferred the boys to a large slave ship. the traders spent several more weeks gathering human cargo before the ship set sail for the british colony of barbados. over the next 50 years, renamed jeffrey brace, he survived the horrors of west indian slave breaking, fought as an enslaved sailor/soldier in the seven years war, endured slavery in connecticut, fought in the american revolution, won his manumission, raised a family in vermont, and joined a mixed race network of antislavery activists. in 1810, with the assistance of a young white lawyer named benjamin franklin prentiss and an enterprising young printer named harry whitney he published his life story. almost 190 years later, i picked up, as parry moss just said, a fragile copy of "the blind african slave" in the special collections room at the university of vermont library and i was riveted. i had been studying slave narratives for over a decade and had not encountered a single mention of this extraordinary book. why, i wondered? memoirs by enslaved people who remembered africa are exceedingly rare, as are first person accounts of black soldiers in the american revolution. of the autobiographical narratives in english recording the experiences of enslaved people before 1810, only one is longer than jeffrey brace's. how can we account for the disappearance of "the blind african slave"? in the past 25 years i've traveled far and wide in an attempt to learn more about jeffrey brace and his world. i've come to believe that his story conveys central truths about american history that should be integral to our self-understanding. born to a highly respected family in a region of west africa now called mali, his capture by slave traders threw him into the ranks of millions of africans who were violently severed from their families' cultures and indeed their entire known world. on the voyage to barbados, brace bore witness to men who showed no vestige of kindness, compassion or morality. men who tortured, starved, and murdered children as well as adults. sexual abuse was ubiquitous. brace observes the captain and many of the officers made choice of such of the young women as they chose to sleep with them and introduce them into their several apartments. he continues, to add to the horror of the scene, the sailors who were not provided with mistresses would force the women before the eyes of their husbands. sexual violence was a defining element of the trade, a practice that white officers, sailors, buyers and sellers, saw as a major benefit to their participation in slavery and a tool that they used to subjugate and terrorize the people they enslaved. conditions were so horrific that, as brace tells us, many enslaved people died from disease, mourned themselves to death, or starved. he says, many of the children actually died from hunger. grief, depression, and ptsd were leading contributors to slave mortality. isaac wilson, a surgeon aboard an 18th century slave ship that lost 155 of 602 enslaved people during the middle passage, was persuaded that two-thirds of the deaths resulted from melancholy. closer to africa than any other west indian island, barbados was a central hub in the burgeoning trans-atlantic economy and the first port of call for many english slave ships. seen by english monarchs as the brightest jewel in our crown of trade, the island sparkled against the aquamarine caribbean sea but its economic engine was violence, exploitation, and death. when the traumatized young man arrived he and his fellow slaves were removed from the slave ship and imprisoned in what he calls a large prison or rather house of subjection where they were beaten and starved until all began to be subdued and to work according to their strength and abilities. among other atrocities brace recalls a slave driver who responded to her attempts to protect her brother by whipping the girl to death in front of her brother's eyes. after she died the driver turned on brace and with a large tarred rope gave me about 50 stripes which cut whales in every part of my body. brace also notes that sailors continued to rape enslaved women in bridgetown as they had done aboard ship in a manner that terrorized the witnesses as well as the women in presence of all the assembly. he says, fathers and mothers were eyewitnesses to their daughters being despoiled, husbands beheld their wives in the hands of the beastly destroyers. children bore witness of the brutality practiced upon their mothers. in addition to committing rapes themselves, enslavers profited financially from enabling other men to commit rape. both male and female slave holders encouraged the prostitutions of the women they enslaved. after about three months in the slave breaking prison -- i'm just going to take a moment to show you some slides. it is really powerful, this is from the public records office in london. it is really powerful, these are the original ports from the -- logs from the port of the town of bridgetown where you have the commander's name, these are the slave ships, and the number of slaves that are on board ship. and they are -- the numbers go up to 602 and are as small as two. here is another list. you can see barbados, treasury return of new negros imported from the 9th of may, 1757, to 9th of may, 1758, and you can see the numbers. so brace believes there were about 300 survivors on his ship. there were many artistic representations of the violence, contemporaneous representations of the violence board ship. and this is a record that shows just the casualty of what we call the triangular trade from africa we import negros to the northern colonies we export rum et cetera in return for maryland, virginia, pa, et cetera. all the different products and human besides are just included as a product along with the others. so this is bridgetown. i was just saying to mike, one of the astonishing things i discovered in this research that blew me away and forced me to reorient my understanding of the world in the 18th century, bridgetown was a more important port than any of the cities we consider so important like new york, philadelphia, boston. it was a really major trans-atlantic hub at the time. okay. so after about three months in the slave breaking prison brace was sold to a connecticut ship captain named isaac mills whose 44-gun frigate was engaged by the british navy for the duration of the seven years war. many of you will have seen a 44-gun frigate because this is what it looks like, the "u.s. constitution. the british navy relied heavily on black labor. in some naval yards the majority of laborers were black and all of the colonial european powers viewed black soldiers and sailors as essential to their military and commercial ambitions in part because of the high mortality rate of white sailors. the seven years war, which was also called the french and indian war, was in many ways the first world war, that is to say, a global struggle between european powers who were vying for control of colonies around the world. the central rivalry was between france and england but in 1762 the spanish allied with the french. during the last three years of the war, the period in which brace was impressed into service, the british shifted their military effort to the west indies laying siege to martin seeing, guadalupe, and havana. awed by the spectacle of enormous navies, brace bore witness to the english capture of havana in the summer of 1762. a strategic port essential to the spanish power in the caribbean, havana was more strongly fortified than any other port in the americas. the british plan to attack it with a sea borne army of more than 20,000 men, including at least 500 free black men and 2,000 enslaved men from jamaica. thus brace joined thousands of african american impressed into military service. early in 1762, captain mills' vessel lost sight of the guide ship in a fog and was fired upon by a spanish vessel. during the ensuing battle, brace received five wounds and in the eyes of his captain, showed great courage. after towing the captured spanish vessel to savannah, georgia, mills sailed again for havana where the british assault began on june 8th. after a horrific siege in which hundreds of soldiers died from combat while thousands died from heat, yellow fever, malaria, gastrointestinal disorders and scarcity of drinking water, the spanish commandant formally surrendered on august 14th. after the war, captain mills returned to commerce, sailing with his crew to dublin, ireland and to many north american ports including halifax, nova scotia, st. augustine, florida, new york city, newport, rhode island, and boston, massachusetts. thus jeffrey brace became, through no choice of his own, a world traveler and cultural hybrid. he liked boston, where he was allowed to rest for about two months while recovering from multiple wounds. he encountered a community of, in his words, free african descendants who appeared to be well-contented in their situation. they showered him with questions and attention and brace found himself extremely anxious to remain in boston. a hub of both the slave trade and antislavery agitation, boston had a significant black and brown community that included many intellectually and politically active freed women and men, as well as slaves and fugitives. brace may have met many impressive bostonians. this is kind of how boston harbor looked at the time, boston market. brace may have met many impressive black bostonians including a young girl named phyllis who had been sold at the age of 8 to john wheatly about a year before brace's arrival. wheatly was a prominent merchant and tailor whose clientele included the wealthiest men in boston, john hancock, who was also a slave holder. phyllis wheatly likely helped sew hancock's posh clothes. so this is a portrait of him. this is his wife. and this is a portrait we have of phyllis wheatly who, as you know, becomes one of the mothers of african american literature. in jeffrey bolster's brilliant work titled "black jacks: african american sea men in the age of sail," he has a portrait of how some block sailors looked. brace refers twice to the clothes he was given, and he probably -- his clothes probably looked more like this. he says captain mills clothed him in a sailor's jacket and kilt and new white shirt. he had no shoes. although brace desperately wanted to remain in boston, in fall of 1763, captain mills transported him to new haven, connecticut and sold him to a yankee puritan from milford, mills' hometown. compared to the bustling international ports brace had visited, new haven was a small, conservative town on long island sound. the village proper was organized around the town green where brace would have seen three churches, four yale college buildings, a courthouse, jail, and grammar school. the population of new england was only about 2% black. all new england colonies legalized slavery between 1641, massachusetts, and 1714, new hampshire, codifying it as an inherited racial status. although impoverished white locals and immigrants were -- sorry, although slavery did not flourish in new england, the way it did in southern colonies, impoverished white locals and immigrants were routinely sold into indentured servitude. a typical announcement in the connecticut gazette stated, samuel willis of middletown will sell several african boys and girls. the lack of denigrating language in the simple announcement that boys and girls were for sale testifies to a society well-versed in exploitation of children as well as africans. in the months following brace's arrival, the connecticut gazette announced the sale of, quote, a likely negro and child on june 16th, 1763, the binding out of poor white adults and children on july 12th, 1763, and the sale of a parcel of irish servants just imported from dublin both men and women to be sold cheap. as historian robert cultural observes, racial distinctions in america -- racial distinctions in colonial america were less pronounced than they would become. this was not because early america had a high regard for black bondsmen but rather because many whites were also in bondage. recruited from the british lower classes, frequently the irish, whites held in various forms of servitude often lived lives that were little different from those of the black slaves. indentured servants and sea men worked at the save occupations that slave did, were sold on auction blocks alongside imported africans, and were flogged and maimed for many of the same offences for which blacks were punished. newspapers in colonial america often carried advertisements for both runaway blacks and runaway whites. wives and sons were also frequent runaways from the severe violence of the patriarchal family structure. in connecticut, brace encountered white attitudes that range from pro slavery to abolitionist and from rabidly racist to mildly egalitarian. he describes in a plainspoken manner the sadistic treatment he received at the hands of yankees, suffering from multiple wounds sustained in battle and during work, brace was sold by captain mills to john burwell of milford, a village on the long island sound built on meadows and woodlands taken from native peoples. the land was fertile. game was plentiful. and the sound in the east river abounded with clams, oysters, blue crabs, lobsters, and many varieties of fish. at the time of brace's arrival on a frosty october milford featured two churches. this is a rendering of one of them. it still stands. so the town featured two churches, three taverns, two small church-run libraries and four schools as well as many houses and businesses. ship building was an important industry. many ocean going vessels including slave ships were built in milford's shipyards which were located on a well-protected harbor that was navigable for the good sized vessels which tied up at the wharf to load and unload. milford merchants prospered by exchanging horses, cattle, pork, beef, mutton, flour, cornmeal, for sugar, rum, and molasses from the west indies, manufactured goods from england and wines from france. almost one in ten residents of milford was enslaved. although the overwhelming majority of connecticut residents over 95% were not slave owners at any given time, 70% of connecticut's wealthy merchants owned slaves in the 18th century as did 50% of wealthy farmers, justices, officers, captains, deputies, ministers, and deacons. in short, slavery was created by and for the ruling class, the same elite that exploited the labor of white indentured servants. in the household of john burwell, brace was forced to sleep on a bare hearth without so much as a blanket, encountering snow for the first time, he had nothing to wear but his thin linen jacket and sailor's kilts, given no shoes, he was forced to work outdoors in bare feet. the wounds he had received at sea broke out newly and he almost perished with cold and hunger. brace describes burwell as a professed puritan who would read the bible and pray both at night and morning for all mankind while starving, beating, and torturing the man he held in bondage. brace's juxtaposition of burwell's religious pietty with his savage humanity anticipates the motif of christian hypocrisy that would become central to the antebellum slave narrative. the congregational church to which the burwell family belonged collected taxes from all taxpayers. like whites, blacks in 18th century connecticut were required to attend church. in most churches the seating reflected the social hierarchy. the social elite occupied the most prominent seats, being the lowest in social rank, blacks were assigned to the negro corners that he rescued and brought him to his own home where he nursed him back to health, but as soon as brace was able to work again, he was so old, again, this time to peter pewden, another sadist who left him for crying that night. brace him from one cruel millford master to another until 1768 when he was purchased by widow mary styles of woodbury, a nearby town. in the two brief paragraphs he devoted to when he was enslaved by the styles family, he says the years he spent with mary styles was, quote, a glorious era in my life as widow styles was one of the most noble woman in the world, possessed every christian virtue. taught him to read, helped him improve english speaking can skills and treating him with grandmotherly affection. the southbury -- this is a signature from harry styles. the parish where mayor styles lived and children and grand children was situated in a heavily fertile landscape, featured old indian trail, featured church, school, and so on, the styles' home property, outlined by a stone fence was across the street from a cemetery built over an ancient putatuk burial ground. recollections from his life with mary styles suggests like most insight people in new england, was bound to the family circle of agriculture, errands, brace lived near dozens of people of african descent. white people often pretended indians had vngsed but in fact several putatuk families were neighbors of mary styles. laws required all blacks, enslaved or free to carry a pass from the authorities or masters when they left home. blacks and indians were banned from engaging in trade. economic activities that enabled some free people of color to claim a meager share in the economy in places like barbados. slaves in connecticut were subjected to a 9:00 curfew and could be publicly whipped if convicted of being in the street without special permits from masters or mistresses. it was illegal for white families to entertain blacks, milatos or indians unless they were sent on business. you can see here the undermining of any kind of solidarity and friendship across racial lines. further more, licensed shop keepers and tavern keepers were forbidden to entertain, quote, any man's sons, apprentices, servicents or negros with any drink without special order or allowance from parents or masters. if people of color were convicted of a crime, they received punishments exceeding those given to whites, for example, when convicted for selling or receiving stolen property, whites received 20 lashes whereas blacks received 30. brace's memoire suggests what he valued most during his woodbury years was mary style's determination to educate him. she sent him to a local school along with her grand children but the school master reacted to brace with hostility and violence, the scene took an unusual twist when brace decided not to accept a whipping and walked out instead of sitting down. he tells us, i had expected he would follow me, and had determined in my own mind to give him a whipping as i verily believed the task would be easy. anger prompted me to this determination but he did not follow me. a tall, muscular young man, brace apparently intimidated the school master, noting, quite, prudence kept him from following me and vengeance melted me into pity for i pitied his want of discernment and just judgment. despite this trive of sorts, brace was so overcome with disappoint and pain he sat down and wept. he may have been familiar with one of the most outrageous pieces of racist legislation in connecticut, the 1708 defamation act which stated if any negro or milato serve aren't or slave disturbed the peace or offer to strike any white person, such person shall be punished by whipping, in 1730, this law was strengthened to make it illegal for any blacks, milatos or indians to utter, publish, or speak actionable words. thus, white people could taunt, assault, threaten and attack black people and indians with impunity, knowing that any black or indian person that defended him or herself risked violent punishment at the hands of so-called justice. brace was comforted when widow styles decided to teach him herself. part of a significant minority of christian mistresses who were willing to break social convention and even the law in order to teach enslaved people to read. mary styles saw it as her religious duty to enable her slave to read the bible. the congregational church expected women to remain silent in church and forbade them to preach, thus teaching brace and discussing theology with him gave mary a rare opportunity to exercise her intelligence and display her knowledge. brace observes she was infatigueble until i could read in the bible and expound the scriptures after marry's death in 1773, real estate went to benjamin, she probably had little control under this inheritance, unless she received a prenuptial agreement a wife could niert own property, write a contract into a will, therefore brace was in a new period of enslavement in benjamin and rue styles and their nine children. benjamin was lawyer and legislature who served several terms in connecticut's general assembly. in 1777, styles' reputation began to faulter, suspected of corruption and torrie sympathies. as the sentiment towards revolution began to build, in 1777, two of benjamin styles sds sons nathan and david, 18 and 26 enlisted in continental army and jeffrey brace joined them. he was not slow to recognize the irony of fighting for american freedom. quote, i also entered the banners of freedom. alas, poor african slave to liberate free men, my tyrants. in this, brace highlights the fact that not all definitions of freedom were created equal. the harvard sociologist orlando patterson who has written monumental studies of the elements of both slavery and freedom as they evolved over millennia and civilizations around the globe demonstrated that concepts of freedom emerged historically in a closed dialectal relationship with slavery, the authors of our most cherishes documents failed to extricate their revolutionary values of freedom, equality and democracy from their economic, and reliance upon recognized patriarchal structures of slavery. we continue to witness the undermining of democracy today in the ways the term freedom is deployed to justify the purr , perpetuation of mysoginy, freedom with three central definitions, personal freedom involves the ability to pursue one's desires without coercion or restraint, but within the limits of other persons' desire to do the same. sovereignal freedom is the power to act as one pleases regardless of the wishes of others. this is the definition that the founders attacked and if you saw the exhibit where king george's statue is being toppled, that's why, they didn't like this idea of sovereign freedom, the freedom of the sovereign to do whatever they wasn't. in the declaration of independence, they came out in complete opposition to that notion. so our founding documents assert a vision of civic freed md which is the capacity of adult members of a community to participate in its life and government. a person feels free in this sense to the degree he or she belongs to the community, has a recognized place in it and is involved in some way in the way it is governed. the existence of civic freedom implies a political community of some sort with clearly defined rights and obligations for every citizen. we must reject the reduction of freedom to notions that narcissistic elites and transnational corporations have the right to do as they please regardless of the harms they inflict on other humans and indeed the earth itself. but to return to the story which i don't have a whole lot left, african american soldiers, sailors, guides, played a significant role in the revolutionary war, comprising possibly as much as 25% of george washington's army, they enlisted for a variety of reasons. the motives of free blacks ranged from economic necessity, desire for adventure, enslaved men primarily from men's admission, some black men were forced to serve as substitutes for their masters or other white men, during and after the war their fates varied widely. a contemporary observer noted a blank space is left on historical markers between black soldiers and white. in genuine keeping with the negro pew distinction, setting them not only below all the others but by themselves even after that and it is difficult to say why they were not the last in fight. historical records indicate 25 enslaved men from woodbury, enlisted from the war and made good soldiers, a quote from contemporary source, fighting valiantly for the values of the country, many enslaved men from millford and other towns also enlisted. brace spent most of the war in integrated units but may -- there were some black and people of color units where he might have spent time. while he remained in service for five years, benjamin styles' sons performed cursory duty. they arrived in camp together on august 16th, 1777 and entered captain hickuck's regiment commanded by benjamin esquire, colonel hinman was their uncle which may explain why their military service skooibed to the nearest token, nathan discharged after 29 days including 10 days for travel, and david after one month and seven days including 10 days for travel. brace did not serve along the styles' boys, he served in private and numerous infantry for the duration of the war, in contrast to sombre and even awe-struck treatment of the seven year's war, brace's interpretation of the revolution is irreverence and sometimes even comic. tongue in cheek he describes when occasionally he would pull the wool over the eyes of his commanding officer, jonathan migs, brace recalls a group of soldiers led by samuel shaw, a brave soldier but as complete a petty thief as ever, brace stole a position from a tori farmer, the hostility between the wigs and torries ran deep, most of the toris from the upper class and often saw the patriots as rabble. shaw and his buddies brought the stolen pig back to camp and they came looking for it, the troops question how they obtained the position, brace claimed the owner had it for sale, but suspected of him being a tori spy decided to keep the pig until the officers could question him. he related my fellow soldiers were glad of the opportunity of confirming the truth of my assertion which complete satisfied the colonel of our innocence. in addition to showcasing brace's sense of humor, this incident reveals a sense of comradery he felt with his fellow soldiers. in the summer of 1783, brace was given an honorable discharge with a badge of merit. samuel c. booge a lieutenant, later said jeffrey brace was an honorable sorj and there was no better in the army. styles finally consented he might go where he please and seek his fortune. hundreds of white folks from connecticut were heading to vermont and brace joined them, having heard flattering accounts of the new state. the flattering accounts included the fact that vermont was a first state to abolish slavery, which it did in its 1777 constitution. from a white perspective, vermont was a frontier wilderness but brace found it rich with promise. i have a few more pages, but i want to get to ron and the conversation so i think we all just try to be a little quick here. while working at a tavern in dorset, saving money to start a farm, jeffrey met an african widow named suzanna, douglyn who he said possessed resip possess abhorence to slavery, getting married he was thrilled, so late in his life, in early 40s. through hard work and persistence, jeffrey and suzanna achieved many successes but also suffered tremendously. the most horrific thing that happened to them is two powerful white people forced suzanna's children into indentured servitude and jeffrey and suzanna were not able to prevent that from happening. in my introduction in the book i go into a lot more detail. anyway, they started a farm in southern vermont and after seven years of harassment from a racist neighbor, they ended up needing to sell and once the racist neighbor threatened to indenture their, the children they had together, brace said over my dead body and they sold their farm and moved to northern vermont and started over. things started going well for them. they were able to buy another farm and start it. at this point, they had extended family including adults, they had, in 1804 had their first grandson, but then in 1807, suzanna suddenly got ill and died 11 days later. which was a severe blow. so jeffrey said short was the warning but heavy the blow, i was left without an earthly companion to linger at the remaining of my days. but he did not give up. despite suffering from blindness, age and poverty, brace through himself into antislavery activism in his late 60s, narrated his life story to benjamin prentice a white antislavery lawyer, brace explains his determination to narrate his story arising primarily out of his sense of duty to myself, to all african americans who can read, to the church, and sure to all mankind, to thus publish my memoirs so those may see how poor africans are and perhaps now abused by a christian and enlightened people. so the book was really extraordinary, was the first and -- it was the first book ever published in the small town of vermont near the canadian border and not many books have been published there since. but it had a big impact but didn't sell much, so he was still really financially struggling. there was a surprising number, however, of african american activists and preachers in vermont so in 1852, black church elder named beautifully, john lewis, described brother jeffrey brace as a man of remarkable influence and a bible scholar whose influence helped to revolutionize the public sentiment of the state against the abomination of american slavery and to destroy prejudice against color. by the mid 19th century, vermont became the most antislavery state in the union and john lewis asserted, i am acquainted with several brethren in whose hearts were planted the seeds of abolitionism by the simple tale of that man's wrongs inflicted by the cruel slave power. late in his life, congress passed an act to provide pensions for surviving soldiers from the revolution and brace applied for him and it took three years but eventually he did obtain it and was given the pension with a rears which totalled $328 in rears which was a lot of money then, so that was enough to make the last six years of his life materially comfortable. jeffrey brace died in georgia, vermont, on april 20th, 1827. he was memorialized in his hometown of pultany where the local newspaper who had in print, a young teenager apprentice, forest greeley published a long obituary praising his mental power and see power of his memory. by 1850, power of racist memory achieved legendary status within vermont's abolitionist community. john w. lewis asserted that brace's noble pious character had a powerful influence on the public mind in vermont. he had a powerful and wonderful memory and although for many years during the latter partly of his life was perfectly blind, he had the bible so committed to memory that he could repeat it chapter and verse from genesis to revelations with an accuracy truly astonishing. it has been said of him that if the bible was lost and not a copy to be found on earth, if a good writer would sit down with him, he could repeat it from memory so that a complete copy could again be produced. he goes on like that and concludes, brother jeffrey brace in life was useful and in death was happy. it may truly be said of him, his record is on high. fortunately, for us, his record is also on earth, both in the form of his precious memoire and in the lives of his physical and spiritual descendants. the story continues with them. four great grand sons survived. jeffrey s. brace moved to springfield massachusetts where his descendants still live including rhonda. this is his grave stone in vermont. peter brace fought for the union during the civil war in the first black regiment, the massachusetts 54th. he survived the war and lived until 1913. wyron brace was named after his african great grandfather whryn and married ellen day, a woman who loved to garden. after they divorced, ellen day married the youngest brace brother, ethan and the man on the right there, dick francis is a descendant of ellen day who he remembered and from whom he inherited his love of gardening. so on the left is tina st. francis brace from the st. francis band of abunakees married to jim brace, like the age of rhonda and i, so the braces intermarried with abunakees probably for 200 years. this is a photo from the 1970s, a portrait of the brace family that is still in st. albans. jim who i just mentioned is the second from the left on the top, but you can see, well i don't know if you can see in the photo but range from blonde and blue eyed to quite dark. i just feel like this is the american family is how i think of this. but despite the fact that they are sons and daughters of the american revolution, when leo brace joined the american army in world war ii, he had to fight in a racially segregated unit. in 2008, 60 descendants of the brace family gathered from around new england for the unveiling of a historical marker, honoring their ancestor near, near the sight of the brace farm in southern vermont. and the brace family also has produced other kinds of patriots. this is rhonda's nephew, ron who unfortunately died at the age of 29, but was in the new england patriots. so i would say that this story i've recounted today is the story of one american family but also the story of the united states and of the modern world. i was walking down the street in prague, czech republic, and i was astounded to come across this statue of over 200 years old dmikting african men in chains upholding the foundation. it is now the romanian embassy in prague and there's no commentary about the horror of this image and so i just really want to emphasize this is not just an american story. this is a story of the modern world and the modern economy. this is rhonda's brother on the left, ronald jeffrey brace the second. he is the father of ron brace who was in new england patriots and jeffrey brace, jeffrey sylvester brace iii. this is a name that stayed in the family since long before they knew anything about the memoire. this is jeffrey brace, her uncle, and his son, jeffrey brace. her uncle jeffrey is, we know that, the original progenitor was 6'3" so her uncle i think looks a lot like the original jeffrey brace, most likely looked. and one of the most spiritual, powerful moments of of my life was when i met him after the book came out and they invited me and when i shook hands, i honestly felt like a bolt of lightening coming through. so that is the end of what -- honestly, i started out with 60 pages and tried to cut it down but i could talk easily for hours because there's so much i want everybody to know about this story but thank you so much for listening. so rhonda brace is going to join me and scott for conversation with you all. >> going to have to let that story sort of rest for a minute. >> rest indeed. >> i think we're on. >> okay. awesome. >> i can hear you. >> first can i say something first? i'd certainly like to thank carly so much, it is because of her that we have our history. she spent a lot of time, a lot of hours and she continues to be passionate about the jeffrey brace story and i'm so glad that we connected and that we have the opportunity to just continue the legacy, continue the story, make sure, because as she said it's not only an american story, it's an international story, it's all of our legacy and i think that is very important for all of us to embrace it. i also wanted to mention that last picture with my uncle and his son, that was also the road that led to where jeffrey brace's homestead the original would have been in pultany, vermont, so we had the opportunity to make that trek there. >> there are so many remarkable moments in the story of just bringing the story to life and one of the things i reflect on a lot, cary, is when you had started working trying to edit and annotate and research this, there were two known copies of this memoire, so thinking, and i think now there are four known copies, how close this story came to being lost completely. >> yeah. >> and this is not a story, rhonda, you grew up knowing. can you say a little about what you all knew and what we filled in afterwards. >> certainly. i did know that my family came from st. albans vermont. always, when people asked my father, where my father's family was from, we were the, where were the braces from, oh we're from vermont and folks were like blacks in vermont? yes, blacks in vermont, that's where my father's family came from. we had no idea or even history. we had no bibles with history, family lineage of any sorts. the only thing we had marriage certificates, birth certificates of jeffrey sylvester brace, the great grandson of the jeffrey we were speaking of, also my grandfather, and he was his grand father, see we had our records indicating his birth, marriage certificates, things of that nature, and knew it was st. albans vermont our family originated from but wasn't until maybe 2004 or five the same uncle, jeffrey brace, a friend of his provided an article from the rutlin herald news paper that spoke of a professor that had done that research on a book in the special collections section of the library and in reading that article, my uncle knew that my dad and him had very great conversations just wondering about their lineage. and because of his name being in that paper, that's why the general that brought the paper to him because he said you have to look at this and, you know, my uncle's like i'll read it later, that kind thing and, you know, he ended up reading it, thought it was comical, brought it to my bed, even though my father, they would call my father babe, hey babe, take a look at this. and he's cracking up thinking it's hilarious, it's funny and my father reads it, finds it interesting, but the beauty of all is that my father had been praying to learn more about his family lineage so when this came across and then i took a paper they're just, you know, reading it and i'm saying to myself, i read it and i say jeffrey brace, wow, that's a family name going for generations and generations and also st. albans vermont is where i know that our family came from, i says it's too much of a coincidence and i thought about the documents we had with dates on them and reading some of the dates with cari as well as jeffrey brace i'm like, you know, it's just too coincidental, i think we're just missing a couple of generations but i'm going to make an attempt and i looked up her information, contacted cari, and i gave her the lineage that i had and she in turn replied and told me sweed that jeffrey brace was my descendant. she was able to give me the two missing links of the two jen generations i was missing. [ applause ] the other phenomenal mention about that is when i contacted cari and left a message for her, she called me back to say, you know, this is cari winters, indeed, you are a descendant of jeffrey brace and my extension number is 1227 and 1227 is my birthday and then come to find out that cari's birthday is actually the date of when the original memoire was published. i have that right, right, so just i like connecting those kind of dots. >> got any numbers for the powerball tonight? >> let's see, 1015, 27, 12. >> so we'll invite you all in the audience and online to ask a few questions as well but i would like to hear the story of your family field trip to connecticut. >> so i had the opportunity, you heard cari mention mary styles and i had opportunity to be in contact with benjamin styles who is a descendant of mary styles and in that conversation or in my contact with him, i think the first time i contacted him and questioned whether or not we could meet and at that time, at that time his mom was not doing well, but anyways, we end up connecting again, had the opportunity to take a trip to what is now southbury, was booedbury at the time, but southbury when we went in 2013. met ben styles, he and i talked. he wondered if i had papers or information, i wondered if he had papers or information. neither one of us had anything but the unique experience about that journey is his wife said, you know, ben, why don't you take them down to the cellar so my mom wouldn't go but my dad and i went down there and what is known is that was, in the cellar, were the quarters where jeffrey brace would have been as a slave. so i, my dad and i as we're walking down the stairs, very eerie, dank smell to us, you can see the fireplace had the cast iron pans for cooking and we just kind of surveyed and went around the rooms but you could also seem like you could feel the presence of jeffrey brace. the floors were the same rickety floors and as we -- it was just an eerie feeling. the only thing i regret is not having a video camera with me at the time to be able to take video of it but i did have the opportunity to take some pictures and one day i hope to, i hope to show those pictures. we came back upstairs and happened to walk back into the kitchen and look back into a room and saw an elderly woman sitting there which was the current vince styles' mother but just put me into the mind of mary styles and just a whole experience just made me think about, wow, first of all, the greatness of her, mary styles taking the time to make sure that jeffrey learned, was able to read, was able to write, how phenomenal was that? and then just to be in the presence of where he once laid his head. so currently, now, that particular location, they sell maple syrup and christmas trees at the time we were there. hoping to make my way back there again, tried to get a charter a bus trip for the family but they weren't ready for that. so -- thank you. yes. >> hear me now? >> so glad to have such a tremendous talk tonight, a little short on time but everyone in the room has great advantage of being able to engage with cari and rhonda on the book-signing table, one question on zoom and then scott has the last one but we all have all night to hang out and talk here in real life at the museum. quick shout-out, we got some great geneological love coming in through online guests, a lot of descendants of the brace family, denise dennis is online, i am aware you saw prince gersh matterhorn, and a different am member of the sixth connecticut, descendant of a soldier who served with jeffrey brace so exciting in the room and on the internet. a question to ask both of you, cari and rhonda, this book has been out about a decade and a half, 15 years ago, so you care to offer any reflections on how the conversations you've had with students with researchers, with family have evolved or changed in the last 15 years? >> you know, for me, i think back to the experience we had of going to oxford and being part of a conference where that was the first time slave narratives were discussed, myself, cari and regina mason were there and i think for that to occur, i thought was a phenomenal feat because it was the first type of conference that we were featured there but not only that, it helped to broaden the knowledge of jeffrey brace across in england so i thought that was phenomenal. i know cari worked a lot with students and i'm certainly sure that, you know, in her experience, has some experience as far as the students are concerned with that. >> it was really a phenomenal -- rhonda and regina mason are really phenomenal. the unique thing about that conference at oxford university, it brought scholars from all around the world who also were studying slavery in different countries, different historical contexts. the most impressive comment i thought was there was a woman from nigeria who was studying slavery and she came up afterwards and said to rhonda and gina, it never occurred to me that people could be proud of their enslaved ancestors and i'm like wow. but anyway, they were incredibly powerful. i would say that the story has never seemed more relevant than it seems today. the urgency of studying african american history is so powerfully present. i've continued doing research. i've published more articles, going into more depth about the different -- like his experience in barbados, in connecticut, vermont and so on, but currently, i'm working on, hoping to have a four-part tv program about his life because i really want it to get a larger audience in the public, so working on that for a while, and the other thing that rhonda and i have both been working on is to create a network that is focused on, like, to me, it's so powerful that the descendants of 18th and 19th century, african american activists and authors are still alive. it just brings the history so close and so, you know, just to see the activism from generation to generation, so i've been doing a lot of work under what i would call reclaiming our ancestors and gina calls it inspired by courage to really showcase the work and continuity of history the way as faulkner said, the past is not dead and gone, it's not even past. so i guess those are a few thoughts in response to that question. >> and i'm not sure if i -- i just want to share this also because often times for me, i know i was surprised to find the out there was slavery in new england. we often think of the enslaved being from southern states, you know, my mother came from alabama but i don't know of any of her family who were enslaved but we all thought of slavery, for me, was one that i always thought about was in the south or never in the new england area. so when this piece of work was introduced, it also introduced to me the idea that or the knowledge that there is slavery in new england and we often hear the term of, you know, being african american and me as a young person, two things, first of all i never liked history so when i was in high school that was not my great subject. >> well we fixed you, right? >> you fixed me, yes. i mean you think about it, they talk about the revolution, the civil war, i didn't see myself in any of that, or those things so i didn't have any interest in it and then the thought that here i am now faced with someone and members of my family, learned more than jeffrey brace who have fought in these wars. it makes sense for us to grasp on -- should never be ashamed of our history, never be ashamed of whose shoulders we stand on. should never be ashamed we should embrace it and share it because knowledge is power and the more we know the more we take ahold of it and the more we move forward ourselves so, i don't think we should ever just let it die, but let it continue on. >> and rhonda, those are the final words tonight. >> what? i'm not going to disney land? >> thank you all. >> thank you very much. >> presidents recorded conversations while in office, hear many of those conversations on c-span's new podcast, presidential recordings. >> season one focused on the presidency of lyndon johnson. you'll hear about the 1964 civil rights act, 1964 presidential campaign, the gulf of tonkin incident, the march on selma and war in vietnam, not everyone knew they were being recorded. >> certainly johnson's secretaries knew because they were tasked with transcribing many of those conversations. in fact, they were the ones who made sure that the conversations were taped, as johnson would signal to them through an open door between his office and theirs. >> you'll also hear some blunt talk. >> jim. >> yes, sir. >> i want a report of the number of people assigned to kennedy on me the day he died, the number assigned to me now, and if mine are not less i want them less right quick. >> yes, sir. >> if i can't ever go to the bathroom i won't go, i'll just stay right behind these black gates. >> presidential recordings, find it on the c-span now mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts. >> we're so thrilled to be back open and be able to have world class authors and all around great human beings like craig back on campus and i think most of us know craig is one of the definitive biographers on ronald reagan in fact the london telegraph hailed him as the best of the reagan biographers. he has proven books like citizen newton, that he is one of the best historian authors out there, speaking of which as

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