While in Florida, she was the Creative Director of Woodland Fine Arts Academy, which was comprised of over 650 students. Before she moved to Texas she lived in Florida. They were honored to receive the Outstanding Award in Music. three years ago and paved a way for them to compete at the Junior Theater Festival in Atlanta, Georgia. She also serves as the Fine Arts Theatre Director at Liberty Christian School. She currently serves as the Creative/Managing Director and directs the Theatre Co., Kids, and Junior Musical Theatre Performing Classes. "Maybe her descendants will find us," she said.Jennifer Freeman opened the LAC three years ago and is grateful for all the students that God has brought to this program. VanSant hopes a permanent memorial will spur interest into Freeman's story. "We don't know if Elizabeth Freeman went to the church, but we know Ashley did, and it was common for enslavers to bring enslaved people to look after their children at church," said O'Brien.Īlthough some 200 people were expected to attend Sunday's unveiling, the culmination of three days of celebrations, organizers have been unable to find any of Freeman's descendants. The statue, cast by renowned sculptor Brian Hanlon, was placed on the property of the First Congregational Church in Sheffield, not far from the Sedgwick home. Much of what historians know about her was written by one of Theodore Sedgwick's daughters, the novelist Catharine Maria Sedgwick, O'Brien said.
The Sedgwicks had such a deep respect for Mumbet that when she died in 1829 at about the age of 85 she was buried with them, the only non-family member in the family plot. She was a healer, a nurse and a midwife, who bought her own property in nearby Stockbridge, VanSant said. "For me as an African American woman, it's amazing to be walking in her footsteps," she said.Īfter the court case, Ashley asked Freeman to return to his household as a paid servant, but she refused and instead went to work for Sedgwick, where she helped raise his children and was known by the affectionate name, Mumbet. She called Freeman an icon and a trailblazer. Gwendolyn VanSant, the CEO of BRIDGE, an area nonprofit that fosters racial understanding and equity, is overseeing the scholarships. He brought together stakeholders and raised about $280,000, enough money for the roughly 8-foot statue, as well as a scholarship fund in Freeman's honor for area high school students.
Anthony in Adams, the Berkshire County community where the suffragist was born. Pignatelli was inspired to raise a statue of Freeman last year when he attended the unveiling of a statue of Susan B. He found that many of his colleagues in the Statehouse were also largely in the dark about the significance of her case, which set the legal precedent that essentially ended slavery in Massachusetts. William "Smitty" Pignatelli grew up not far from Sheffield in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts yet didn't hear her story until about 20 years ago. Her story, while remarkable, remains relatively obscure. The story of an enslaved woman who went to court to win her freedom more than 80 years before the Emancipation Proclamation had been pushed to the fringes of history.Ī group of civic leaders, activists and historians hope that ended Sunday in the quiet Massachusetts town of Sheffield with the unveiling of a bronze statue of the woman who chose the name Elizabeth Freeman when she shed the chains of slavery 241 years ago to the day. A monument of civil rights pioneer Elizabeth Freeman is unveiled in front of Sheffield's Old Parish Church in Sheffield, Mass., Sunday, Aug.
0 kommentar(er)
