Associate Professor of History Richard A. Bailey, PhD, recently received notification that the National Endowment of Humanities (NEH) awarded a Digital Projects for the Public Discovery Grant to the proposed work “Lucy Terry Prince: A Window into African American Life in Early Rural New England.”
Bailey will join a team of renowned scholars including Joanne Pope Melish, Christy Clark-Pujara, Thomas Doughton, Kerri Greenidge and Harvey Amani Whitfield as they work with the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association (PVMA) in the Old Deerfield Village Historic Landmark District in Massachusetts, to build an immersive and interactive website focusing on the lives and contributions of enslaved and free Africans in early rural New England. Beginning with the life story of early African American poet Lucy Terry Prince (c. 1730-1821), the project will contrast her experiences with other historical figures—African, Native and white—to increase the public’s understanding of the distinct pattern and role of slavery and servitude in rural New England towns.
For more information about the work the PVMA has been doing in recent years, click here.
Submitted by: Department of History
