Black Declarations of Independence: Before and After 1776

The Program in African American History at the Library Company, in partnership with American Philosophical Society, will host Black Declarations of Independence, Before and After 1776, a two-day public conference exploring how Black people have articulated, enacted, and reimagined freedom across time.

We are pleased to announce that our keynote speakers will include:

• Christopher L. Brown, historian of the British empire and professor of history at Columbia University, with award-winning projects such as Moral Capital: Foundations of British Abolitionism (2006)
• Annette Gordon-Reed, Carl. M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University, and Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Hemingses of Monticello (2008) and On Juneteenth (2021)
• Nell Irvin Painter, renowned historian, artist, author, and Edwards Professor of American History, Emerita, Princeton University, with bestsellers such as Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol (1996) and The History of White People (2010)

The significance of this event is especially urgent amid current debates and controversies surrounding Philadelphia’s 250th-anniversary commemorations. This gathering insists that any reckoning with 1776 must also attend to the multiple, ongoing declarations of freedom that mark the presence and persistence of Black life within, and beyond, American history.