A Weekend of Conversation, Camaraderie and Commemoration
Historians, artists, activists, and authors will gather with Adirondack communities for conversation, camaraderie and commemorative programs presented by John Brown Lives! (JBL!) on August 3 and 4, 2024. All are welcome to participate.
On Saturday afternoon, August 3rd, author and scholar Amy Godine will lead a walkthrough of the “Dreaming of Timbuctoo” exhibition detailing the interracial struggle for Black voting rights in New York State and African American settlement on the Adirondack frontier in the 1840s. The exhibit, curated by Godine, is permanently displayed in the upper barn at the John Brown Farm State Historic Site in Lake Placid, NY.
Immediately following, from 3:45-5pm, artists Tiffany Rea-Fisher and Ren Davidson Seward will talk about their work as Creatives Rebuild New York (CRNY) artist-collaborators with John Brown Lives!
Rea-Fisher, choreographer and artistic director of EMERGE125, will show “Geography of Grace,” a dance film she created while collaborating with John Brown Lives! It was set to an original score by Erica Blunt and filmed at John Brown Farm.
Davidson Seward will talk about two public art works she installed at the historic site while a CRNY artist-collaborator, “A Memorial Field” and “Spiraling ‘Round the Promise of the Right to Vote,” a chronology of the centuries-long and ongoing struggle to expand and protect equal access to the ballot box. Recently updated, it will be installed at the John Brown Farm on July 31st, and Davidson-Seward will guide people through the installation following her talk.
The Harriet Tubman “Beacon of Hope” statue, by sculptor Wesley Wofford, is also on view at the Farm.
The program from 3-5pm is free and open to all.
Saturday evening, JBL!’s second annual Long Table event will feature constitutional scholar and playwright Gloria Browne-Marshall, American historian Manisha Sinha, and Ellen Rocco, former station manager at North Country Public Radio, in a spirited, open-ended, history-informed exchange of views and Q&A with attendees on many of the issues of concern in the country today.
The Long Table will begin at 5pm with cocktails and a long table brimming with charcuterie, specialty cheeses, smoked salmon, and gazpacho prepared by Chef Lewis Hughes. The evening will draw to a close with a Prosecco pour and dessert.
Chef Hughes is a descendant of Lewis Sheridan Leary, one of the young Black men who joined John Brown at Harper’s Ferry to strike a blow against slavery. He was killed during the raid. His remains are interred at the John Brown Farm.
The following morning, on Sunday, August 4, at 11am, JBL! will lead a commemorative hike up Goodman Mountain to mark the 60th anniversary of the recovery of the bodies of Andrew Goodman, James Earl Chaney and Michael Schwerner, young civil rights workers murdered and disappeared, buried in an earthen dam, by the Ku Klux Klan in Philadelphia, Mississippi on June 21, 1964. Their bodies were found forty-five days later.
The Goodman family has generational ties to Tupper lake, and in 2014, Litchfield Mountain, as the peak was formerly known, was renamed Goodman Mountain to honor the life and the legacy of Andrew. James and Michael.
The trailhead can be accessed on Route 3, approximately 9 miles south of Tupper Lake.
For information, email info@johnbrownlives.org or text 518-744-7112.