From 2:00PM to 3:00PM

RISHM Black History Month Program, Live and VirtualThe public is invited to attend an illustrated lecture celebrating Black History Month on Saturday, February 26 at 2:00 pm, entitled “Benevolence and Success in the Era of Slavery: Duchess Quamino and William Ellery Channing.” The program is presented by RI Slave History Medallions (RISHM) live at the Channing Memorial Church, 135 Pelham Street, Newport, and simulcast live online at YouTube https:// www.youtube.com/c/ChanningMemorialChurchThe featured speaker will be Akeia de Barros Gomes, Ph.D., anthropologist and senior curator of Maritime Social Histories at the Mystic Seaport Museum and Visiting Scholar at the Center for Slavery and Justice at Brown University. She will talk about the lives and relationship of two historic figures from Newport’s Colonial era, the formerly enslaved nanny and baker Duchess Quamino and abolitionist William Ellery Channing, the well known orator, transcendentalist and longtime minister of the Unitarian Church.The program also commemorates the installation of a RI Slave History medallion marker at the historic William Ellery Channing home at 24 School Street on Historic Hill in Newport. The QR code on the marker may be scanned with a phone or digital device that links a viewer to a documented narrative about the site at the publicly accessible slave history archive, www.rishm.org.Duchess Quamino’s baked goods gained renown and it was said George Washington requested her plum cakes when he was in Newport. She was eventually able to raise enough money to buy her and her family’s freedom from Reverend William Ellery Channing whose views of abolitionism she influenced. Channing’s philosophy and progressive writing helped usher in the period of Enlightenment with American authors such as Ralph Waldo Emerson. It was in Channing’s honor that the Channing Memorial Church and a Touro Park statue in Newport were erected in the 1880’s.Event registration is free at eventbrite.com. In person attendance will be limited to those who have preregistered online. Attendees must wear masks and COVID safe seating will be provided as per RI Health Department protocols. For more information, please contact RISHM director Charles Roberts at info@rishm.org or 401-339-3035.