August 19, 2024
By: Patrick Silvia, ABC6
NEWPORT, R.I. (WLNE) — Today the Newport Historical Society announced the launch of the “Voices Campaign” to raise $4.5 million to create a Center for Black History in Newport.
The society is building on its previous work, like the digitizing of more than 4,000 records through the Voices from NHS Archives database and the ongoing exhibition A Name. A Voice. A Life: The Black Newporters of the 17th-19th Centuries.
The center will be in the 327-year-old Wanton-Lyman-Hazard House, a National Historic Landmark and the oldest surviving home in Newport.
The NHS said Senator Jack Reed helped secure $400K in federal funding for the project to kick off the campaign.
“The Wanton-Lyman-Hazard house has many important stories to tell about Newport, our nation’s founding, and our evolution as a community and society. The Newport Historical Society is doing critical work preserving and sharing the history of this home and the people who lived here, and uncovering the stories that were too often pushed aside or forgotten,” Reed said. “I am proud to deliver this federal funding to ensure the history of enslaved and freed Africans in Newport does not gather dust in the attic. We must preserve and share this history and make it accessible to the broadest audience possible.”
The NHS said the programming will be designed with the community and organizations within it that have been influential in the education of these topics.
The hope is for the project to break ground before 2025.
Read this story online: https://www.abc6.com/newport-historical-society-launches-campaign-to-create-center-for-black-history/