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2008 Beach Institute Lecture Series

“Slavery and the Middle Passage”

For 2008, The theme and the related activities of this program are designed to develop a better understanding of the Slavery Period, the Middle Passage and the genesis of five of Savannah’s historical institutions, sites and community activities.

The Atlantic waterway across which African captives sailed came to be known as the “Middle Passage”, as it lay between the African homeland and the Atlantic shores of the New World. Anywhere from nine million to twelve million Africans arrived in the Americas through this passage in a horrific trip that could take anywhere from one to five months depending on the weather.

The African captives on the slave ship called the Amistad managed to free themselves from their chains and mutinied against the ship’s captain and crew, but through trickery were recaptured and brought to trial for murder. The mutinous cargo of the Amistad was eventually freed through the intervention of New Haven, Connecticut abolitionists known as the Amistad Committee. They secured the help of President John Quincy Adams who represented these Black immigrants before the Supreme Court of the United States which ordered them freed.

The Amistad Committee, most of whom were Congregationalists, later formed the American Missionary Association which sent teachers to the South to establish schools for ex-slaves. In 1867, one such group came to Savannah, establishing a school, Beach Institute. They also spearheaded the organization of First Congregational Church here in 1869. A member of this church, Frank Callen, in 1917, formed a club for boys in the Beach Institute, known today as the Frank Callen Boys and Girls Club, the third part of Savannah’s inheritance from the slave period.

As the Beach Institute moves into its programming for year 2008, it is our desire to educate Chatham County citizens, both adults and youth on the importance of this period of our history, and the legacy that has been left behind.

All lectures are free and open to the public.

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Dr. Henry Louis Gates
African American Slave Narratives
and African American Literary Expression during Slavery

February 3, 2008
3:00pm

St. John Baptist Church
522 Hartridge St
Savannah, GA

One of the United States' most influential cultural critics, Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is both an eloquent commentator and formidable intellectual force on multicultural and African American issues. As one of the most prominent and well-known academics in the US today, he is currently the W. E. B. Du Bois Professor of the Humanities and the Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University. He previously served as Chair of the Department of African and African American Studies at Harvard from 1991 to 2006.

He is widely acknowledged for taking African American studies beyond the ideological bent of the 1970s and 1980s black power movement, and bringing it into a scholarly sphere that is equivalent to all other disciplines.
Dr. Gates is a prolific writer who has authored, co-authored, edited or co-edited several books and written numerous articles for The New Yorker, Time, The New Republic and in 2004, a biweekly guest column in The New York Times. In addition, he is Editor of Transition magazine, an international review of African, Caribbean, and African American politics.

Early on, Dr. Gates realized the need for established common African American roots. By publishing bibliographies of such noted writers as Nigeria's Wole Soyinka and republishing historical texts like Harriet Wilson's Our Nig; or Sketches from the Life of a Free Black, written in 1854, he has sought to reify an African American literary and cultural tradition. He has also edited works such as The Oxford-Schomburg Library of Nineteenth-Century Black Women Writers and The Norton Anthology of Afro-American Literature.
Dr. Gates has authored several books including,Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man, The Signifying Monkey, Figures in Black and Colored People: A Memoir that traces his childhood experiences in a small West Virginia town in the 1950s and 1960s. He authenticated and facilitated the publication of The Bondwoman's Narrative by Hannah Crafts, the only known novel by a female African American slave and possibly the first novel by an African American woman. He is also the co-author, with Cornel West, of The Future of the Race.

In 2006, he wrote and produced the PBS documentary, African American Lives, the first documentary series to employ genealogy and science to provide an understanding of African American history. Additionally, he previously wrote and produced the documentaries Wonders of the African World and America Beyond the Color Line for the BBC and PBS, and authored the companion volumes to both series. In 2006, he also co-authored The Annotated Uncle Tom's Cabin, edited with Hollis Robbins. Forthcoming is the documentary, Finding Oprah's Roots, which expands on one of the most popular portions of African American Lives and a sequel to African American Lives.

Dr. Gates is also Editor-in-Chief of the Oxford African American Studies Center, the first comprehensive scholarly online resource in the field of African American Studies and Africana Studies. He is co-editor with K. Anthony Appiah of the encyclopedia Encarta Africana published on CD-ROM by Microsoft, and in book form by Basic Civitas Books under the title Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience. Encarta Africana deals with everything from the history of slave trade as early as the 16th century, to today’s popular hip-hop music.

Dr. Gates graduated summe cum laude with a BA in history from Yale University, and went on to earn both his MA and PhD in English language and literature from Clare College at the University of Cambridge. He has held professional appointments at Yale, Cornell, and Duke prior to accepting his current position at Harvard. A member of the American Philosophical Society, the Academy of Arts and Sciences, the African Literature Association, the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History, Dr. Gates also serves on numerous academic and civic boards and committees.

In 1997 he was named one of Time magazine’s “25 most influential Americans.” His honors and grants include a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant", the George Polk Award for Social Commentary a National Humanities Medal, election to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a Visiting Fellowship at the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. He has received 44 honorary degrees, from institutions including the University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, New York University, University of Massachusetts-Boston, Williams College, Emory University, University of Toronto, and the University of Benin.

Dr. Charles Elmore

Free Blacks in Savannah
Informal discussion with High School Seniors
April 3, 2008
Jenkins High School

History of Beach Historic Neighborhood:
Virtual Tour of Beach Neighborhood
April 4, 2008
Frank Callen Boy & Girls Club

The Beach Institute Historic Neighborhood:
A Legacy from the Slave Period
April 5, 2008
5:00 pm
First Congregational Church
421 Habersham St Savannah, GA

Charles J. Elmore, a native Savannahian, is a retired professor of humanities and head of the mass communications department at Savannah State University, where he taught for thirty-five years. He holds a BS degree in biology and chemistry from Savannah State College, the MA degree in journalism and Ph.D. in higher education administration from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

He has published in refereed and non-refereed journals, and is noted as an authority on black history in Savannah, history of Savannah, jazz history, jazz history from an afrocentric perspective, African American Oral Tradition, African American literature/poetry and the history of Savannah State University. He has delivered major lectures at the Beach Institute, Georgia Historical Society, First Bryan Baptist Church, Ralph Mark Gilbert Civil Rights Museum, National Freedom Day Association (Philadelphia), Georgia Music Hall of Fame (Macon), Georgia Civil War Commission, and lectures at local schools on African American history and literature. Elmore is the author of several historical monographs “Athletic Saga of Savannah State College,” (1992), “An Historical Guide to Laurel Grove Cemetery South (1998), and has authored five books - Richard R. Wright, Sr., at GSIC, 1891-1921 – A Protean Force for the Social Uplift and Higher Education of Black Americans (1996); All That Savannah Jazz…From Brass Bands, Vaudeville, to Rhythm and Blues (1999 – published by Savannah State University); The History of the First Bryan Baptist Church – 1788-2001: Oldest Continuous Black Baptist Church in America (July - 2002); General Hunter’s Proclamation: The Quest for African American Freedom Before and During the Civil War – National Park Service - Eastern National - June 2002; Savannah, Georgia – Arcadia Publishing – March 2002 - Black America Series of Arcadia Publishing).
Additionally, he has contributed over twenty articles on the history of jazz in Savannah to Noteworthy, official newsletter of the Coastal Jazz Association. His research has been cited in the Atlanta Constitution, Washington Post, Bay State Banner, Savannah Morning News, Savannah Magazine; Love Chronicles – Arts and Entertainment Network; and Georgia Music Hall of Fame. Elmore serves on the Historical Marker Committee of the Georgia Historical Society, and was appointed by the Honorable Roy Barnes, Governor of Georgia, to the Civil War Commission from 2000 – 2003. Elmore was named 1997-98 Regents’ Distinguished Professor at Savannah State University. Additionally, he was named the 1998 Distinguished Alumnus of the Year of the St.Pius X High School National Alumni Association.

In February 1999, Elmore received one of the six prestigious Governor’s Award in the Humanities from the Honorable Roy Barnes, Governor of Georgia, for his efforts in preserving and sharing African American history and culture. Under his leadership, Savannah State University's department of mass communications was accredited in May 2007 by the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications (ACEJMC) joining the University of Georgia in Athens as the only other mass communication programs in the state of Georgia with that accreditation.

Debbie Allen
The Amistad Project:
Importance of Telling the Story of Slavery

April 6, 2008
3:00 pm
First African Baptist Church 23 Montgomery St Savannah, GA

Co-Sponsored by The Savannah Bank

With notable credits on stage as an actress and on TV as an actor, producer, director and choreographer, Debbie Allen has become one of the more diversified talents in TV. The career of this dynamic, award-winning singer-dancer has been an inspirational beacon to Black women in the entertainment industry. On Broadway, Allen was a fiery Anita in the 1980 revival of "West Side Story" and a high-kicking prostitute with a heart of gold in Bob Fosse's 1986 revival of "Sweet Charity". She began appearing regularly on TV in the mid-1970s in guest shots, summer replacement series, variety specials and TV-movies. Featured as hard-driving dance teacher Lydia Grant in the film "Fame" (1980), she reprised the greatly expanded role on the critically acclaimed TV series (NBC, 1982-83; first-run syndication, 1983-87) which she also choreographed.

Allen joined the already popular "Cosby Show" spin-off, "A Different World" (NBC, 1987-93), during its second season as producer and primary director. Under her guidance, the show found its focus, hit its stride and became a ratings powerhouse. Along with Cosby, Allen became one of contemporary TV's leading proponents of Black bourgeois values. She has numerous directing credits on such family-oriented sitcoms as "The Cosby Show", "Family Ties", and "The Sinbad Show". She also helmed the 1990 NBC pilot for the hit sitcom "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air". Allen also proved adept as a director of hour long TV drama with two episodes of "Quantum Leap".

Allen may be most widely known to international audiences as the choreographer of the annual Academy Awards presentations since 1991. Allen returned to the regular grind of a weekly sitcom as the co-star, opposite rapper-turned-actor LL Cool J, of "In the House" (NBC, 1995-96), a family sitcom about a once wealthy divorced mother who finds herself sharing a household with a former pro football player. Her feature acting credits include Milos Forman's "Ragtime" (1981), Richard Pryor's semi-autobiographical "Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling" (1986) and the Disney family comedy "Blank Check" (1994).

Since the 80s, Allen has been more active behind the camera, helming the Disney musical comedy remake "Polly" (NBC, 1989) and its 1990 sequel "Polly Comin' Home!" (both of which featured her sister Phylicia Rashad) and the feature "Out of Sync" (1995). She also provided choreography for Billy Crystal's "Forget Paris" (1995). In 1997, Allen realized a long-held dream of producing the film "Amistad", directed by Steven Spielberg, which recounted the story of an 1839 revolt on a Spanish slave ship and court battle for the Africans freedom.

Things to do and see in Savannah

Savannah Music Festival

Ralph Mark Gilbert Civil Rights Museum

City Market

Fort Pulaski National Monument

Isaiah Davenport House Museum

Georgia Historical Society

Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace

The Roundhouse Railroad Museum

Savannah History Museum

Funding Provided by the City of Savannah Department of Cultural Affairs

and our generous sponsors