FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tara Nurin,
Publicist
CAMDEN PHOTOGRAPHER JOURNEYS TO WEST AFRICA TO FURTHER “UNHUSH”
NEW JERSEY’S
LEGACY OF SLAVERY
Beverly Collins-Roberts will Document
Direct Slavery Links between Camden and Africa
CAMDEN,
NJ, April 13,
2008 -- Beverly
Collins-Roberts, the Camden, NJ, historian, photographer and filmmaker who was
the first to publicly reveal the presence of African slaves in Camden, is
furthering her research with a sabbatical to Ghana and Guinea, planned for this
summer. Collins-Roberts made national news in 2005 when she created and
produced the “Still Standing” project, an artistic and educational tribute to
her discovery that 14 slaves toiled in captivity under Camden’s prominent
Cooper family in Pomona Hall, an 18th century mansion that anchored
a 412 acre plantation. In Ghana,
Collins-Roberts will continue her quest to identify and gather documentation of
the removal of slaves from Africa and make connections to their arrival at
Cooper’s Ferry (now Camden)
slave port destinations.
Collins-Roberts,
who traces her own roots to a Guinea prince, will spend several months there
and in Ghana compiling and filming the oral histories from African elders and
photographing descendants of captured slaves, ships’ manifests, records of
sale, and sites where unwitting Africans were kidnapped, processed, sold and
shipped directly on Schooners to Petty’s Island then auctioned in Philadelphia.
When taxation on slaves in Philadelphia rose to
15%, Africans were instead sold on the Auction Block across the Delaware River
on the shores of what was then called West Jersey.
Upon her
return, Collins-Roberts will complete “The History of African Americans from
Slavery to Now,” her multi-media exhibition that will include the images and
stories of her findings in West Africa. The
exhibition will travel the country to help scholars, historians, artists and
the general public to better understand New Jersey’s role in American slavery
and further shed light on the slave trade conducted in northern states, which
until recently has been largely ignored and, in the case of Camden,
intentionally kept secret for hundreds of years.
Collins-Roberts
has been a fine art and documentary photographer for
29 years. Her 2005 short film, entitled “Unhushed,”
chronicled her research into Camden's
slave plantations and screened on PBS and in the Philadelphia International
Film Festival and the Harlem Stage Film Festival in 2007. It was co-produced as
the beneficiary of Scribe Video’s “Precious Places” History Project.
She is
the great-great granddaughter of William Still, a famous abolitionist who wrote
The Underground Railroad in 1872 and for whom there is an historical
marker on South 12th
Street in Philadelphia.
To help fund her research journey to Africa,
Collins-Roberts is using a Leeway Foundation grant and hosting a private
exhibition and sale of her work on May 16, 2008 at the Walt
Whitman Arts
Center in Camden. For more information go to www.bevcr.com
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