One of the Richards Center's central missions is to be a national resource for education on controversial subjects like slavery and the African American freedom struggle. To this end, the Richards Center serves as the North American base for "Breaking the Silence" Transatlantic Slave Trade Project (TST-USA), an ongoing initiative with the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The TST project seeks to improve teaching and learning about the Transatlantic Slave Trade and its legacy (including freedom struggles and modern forms of slavery and racism) through linking public school teachers with university and college faculty and museums.
Richards Center faculty associate Nan Elizabeth Woodruff is the National Coordinator for the project. She is responsible for organizing workshops and summer institutes for affiliated schools and universities, as well as for bringing new schools, teachers, and institutions into the program.
There are seven UNESCO TST-USA affiliates in the U.S., along with 110 schools in Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America. Seven American schools/school districts have partnered with local public history or academic institutions. They include:
The Carolina Lowcountry and Atlantic World Program, The College of Charleston, and public schools in Charleston, South Carolina;
The Deep South Humanities Center at Tulane University and New Orleans public schools;
The Richards Civil War Era Center at the Pennsylvania State University and State College, Pennsylvania, public schools;
Three Rivers Middle School in Cincinnati, which is supported by an endowment from Cinergy Corp.;
The William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation at the University of Mississippi;
Troy University Rosa Parks Museum in Montgomery, Alabama;
Institute for International Studies in Education at The University of Pittsburgh
Susan Anderson, Debrah Poveromo, Jill Campbell at the PCSS Awards and Presidential Reception, Eisenhower Hotel and Conference Center, Gettysburg, PA.
Debrah Poveromo, coordinator of the State College Area School District College Prep U.S. History & Social Studies program and site coordinator for the State College UNESCO TST-USA program; Susan Anderson, Social Studies teacher; and Jill Campbell, Learning Enrichment/Gifted Support teacher won the 2008 Outstanding Social Studies Project of the Year from the Pennsylvania Council of the Social Studies (PCSS) for their development and implementation of the History Trunk project. This is a highly competitive, state-wide awards program. The group was presented the award at the annual PCSS Conference at the Eisenhower Hotel and Conference center in Gettysburg on October 16.
Teachers on tour of the French Quarter and Congo Square
during the 2008 Summer Teacher's Institute.
The Richards Center, William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation, and Tulane University sponsored the eighth annual teachers institute at Tulane University in June 2008. The institute featured historian Sylviane Diouf speaking on Clotilda, the last slave ship to arrive in the United States in 1861, poetry readings by Kofi Anyidoho and Nikky Finney, and an appearance by Ruby Bridges, the first African American to desegregate New Orleans schools. The institute included a tour of Evergreen Plantation, the most intact plantation complex in the South, an excursion through the French Quarter, and an all day event in the 9th Ward featuring the Mardi Gras Indians.
Arlington Project (pdf and powerpoint files)
- Arlington National Cemetery African American tour led by Professor William Blair
- Lesson plan on sites of memory in Pennsylvania
- November 2006 letter explaining project
- Purpose of the Arlington project and possible project ideas
- Resources
- Sites of memory interpretation
Arlington Project (internet sites)
- Arlington House (National Park Service)
- Arlington National Cemetery
- Freedmen's Village at Arlington
- National Park Service historical handbook
- Sue Anderson, State College Area High School
Additional Curriculum Resources
- Making the World Better: The Struggle for Equality in 19th Century America is a curriculum designed primarily for middle- and high-school students by the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities and the Tsongas Industrial History Center at the University of Massachusetts/Lowell. The packet focuses on two abolitionist, Lucy Stone and Sarah Parker Remond.
- African Passages from the College of Charleston, SC
For more information about UNESCO TST-USA in general, please visit the official website. For more information about TST-USA at the Richards Center, please contact National Coordinator Nan Woodruff via email or through the Richards Center.
Teachers viewing the Amistad Memorial during the
2007 Summer Teacher's Institute in New Haven, CT.
The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition, McMillan Center for International and Area Studies, Yale University, hosted the seventh annual teachers institute in June of 2007. Highlights included a discussion with Dr. Robert P. Forbes, Greg Belanger, Hon. Keith L.T. Wright, and Dr. Karen Jackson Weaver, on the historical circumstances and commemorative activity on both sides of the Atlantic related to the 1807 British and 1808 US Acts abolishing the slave trade. There was also a presentation to the Amistad America representatives by Arthur Hardy-Doubleday and Donald George to mark the launch of the 2007-08 Atlantic Freedom Tour.
Teachers on tour at Mount Vernon
during the 2006 Summer Teacher's Institute.
The Richards Center hosted the sixth annual teachers institute, "The Untold Story of Slavery in Our Nation's Capital" in June 2006. The institute featured Prof. Sylvia Frey from Tulane University discussing African American religious experience in early America and Prof. William Blair addressing the legacy of George Washington and Robert Lee as slave owners. The institute included a tour of Arlington Cemetery and Mount Vernon.
Teachers at the 2004 UNESCO Transatlantic
Slave Trade Education Project Institute.
The Center hosted an institute in June 2004 that featured Richards Center faculty associates addressing "The Struggle for Freedom" from African American emancipation during the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement of the twentieth century. The institute included a tour of Harpers Ferry.
UNESCO World Heritage Workshop
Held in Philadelphia in February 2005, this program featured two teachers and two students from Cincinnati, three teachers from State College, and one teacher from Memphis. Participants learned about the procedures for designating a world heritage site which could then become a challenging classroom activity.
Trinidad Youth Forum
Some of the UNESCO-TST affiliated teachers from Cincinnati, Charleston, and State College secured funding through their school districts to attend an international meeting of UNESCO-TST in Trinidad.
NEH Landmarks in American History Workshop for Schoolteachers
Teachers from around the country at an NEH Workshop sponsored by the Richards Center in Charleston, South Carolina.
In 2004, the Richards Center was the proud sponsor of a National Endowment for the Humanities Landmarks in American History Workshop for Schoolteachers. Our program, "Slavery and Freedom in Charleston and the Low Country" brought eighty-six teachers from two dozen states to historic Charleston for two one-week workshops. Richards Center faculty associates and visiting scholars from the College of Charleston and the University of Virginia worked with public historians to help the teachers translate tours of historical sites into classroom activities. Visits to Drayton Hall Plantation, the Sea Islands, and Fort Sumter made for a memorable experience that will influence history education in secondary schools around the country for years to come.