Welcome to the Spring 2021 Online Symposium for the Black Activism: A Transatlantic Legacy project! Participating Institutions Highgate Baptist Church, Birmingham, UK University of Georgia, Willson Center for Humanities & Arts, Athens, GA Andrew W. Mellon Foundation The Robbins House, Concord, Massachusetts This symposium honors Reverend Peter Thomas Stanford (c. 1858-1909), a former enslaved African American who became an ordained Baptist minister, educator, writer, and antilynching activist. Stanford pastored fugitive slave communities in Canada and spent eleven years in England as the first African American minister of a church in Birmingham (formerly Hope Chapel, now Highgate Baptist Church). He is featured in the new book, The Magnificent Reverend Peter Thomas Stanford, Transatlantic Reformer and Race Man, eds. Barbara McCaskill and Sidonia Serafini, with Rev. Paul Walker (Univ. of Georgia Press, 2020). In the spirit of Rev. Stanford’s activism, video presentations by speakers, including scholars and students, invite participants to learn about the importance of studying the history of American slavery, and what formerly enslaved writers and reformers like Stanford can teach us about contemporary social justice strategies and goals. To learn more about the presenters, please visit our Speaker Bios page. Co-directors & Contacts: Dr. Barbara McCaskill, bmccaski@uga.edu, Dr. Kelly P. Dugan, and Sidonia Serafini
