XPost: soc.retirement, soc.culture.kenya, rec.crafts.metalworking   
   XPost: alt.politics.economics   
   From: assholes@cnn.com   
      
   Thousands of pages documenting slavery found in attic of Eastern   
   Shore house   
      
   “It was important to the community because this will connect the   
   dots for people and the younger generation, to let them know how   
   things were. To move forward, you have to see what the past was   
   like,” said Carolyn Brooks, a community historian with the   
   Chesapeake Heartland Project.   
      
   About 2,000 pages dating from the late 1600s to early 1800s were   
   found in a plastic trash bag in the attic of a 200-year-old   
   house near Chestertown, Maryland, as the owner, Nancy Bordely   
   Lane, was cleaning it out this spring. The foundation of the   
   house, built in 1803 on property that had remained in the family   
   since 1667, was reportedly damaged and the structure was going   
   to be demolished. The documents were headed for the garbage, but   
   were rescued and delivered to Dixon’s Crumpton Auction in waxed   
   seafood boxes, John Chaski, an antique-manuscript expert, told   
   the Washington Post.   
      
   Darius Johnson, a Washington College alum, was one of several   
   people who saw pictures of the documents up on the auction   
   house’s Facebook page. After moving back to Kent County from   
   Baltimore, Johnson became part of the Chesapeake Heartland   
   project at Washington College, in collaboration with the   
   Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and   
   Culture and local partners. For him, the documents couldn’t have   
   shown up at a better time.   
      
   “This project has started to give me pieces of myself and who I   
   am and it's something I couldn't be more grateful for,” said   
   Johnson, who also works with a local homeownership initiative   
   for low-income residents, many of whom are Black. Among the   
   papers was a contract taking over a 50-acre farm originally   
   purchased by Solomon Willson, a free mixed-race man, in 1802.   
      
   “Tying in the historical narrative has been critical because I   
   want the Black people of Kent County to know that, just a   
   generation or two away, our people owned something - and within   
   that generation or two, we lost that. It’s not that far out of   
   reach, it’s attainable,” he said.   
      
   Lane didn’t know how the collection of documents from several   
   different families that were interwoven through marriage ended   
   up there or how long it had been there. But while she may not   
   have recognized their significance, members of the Black   
   community did, banding together with the college to raise funds   
   and purchase the entire collection. Washington College alumnus   
   and trustee Norris Commodore - the first African American from   
   the local community to graduate from the college and after whom   
   part of the collection is named - and his wife, Terry, were   
   among several Black donors that pitched in to buy the whole   
   collection for a price "in five figures."   
      
   “I love it,” Lane told the Washington Post after learning of the   
   sale. “History should be acknowledged.”   
      
   https://thehill.com/changing-america/enrichment/arts-   
   culture/561409-thousands-of-pages-documenting-slavery-found-in   
         
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)