The RWU Public Humanities & Arts Colalborative gathered in Providence on June 7, 2024 with public humanities colleagues from around the region for a day-long conference on “(Re)Telling: Crafting New Stories of Race and Place in Southern New England”. An afternoon session on “Using Stories to Foster Change” descibed the Upstnder Project and the Providence Truth-Telling and Reconciliaition Framework. Click here for a 19-minute video of the presentation.

Faculty Director of the RWU Public Humanities & Arts Collaborative (The Co-La) Elaine Stiles and RI Humanities Executive Director Elizabeth Francis welcomed over fifty participants at the Providence Public Library Seminar Room.

(Above) Roger Williams University faculty member Brian Hendrickson and Providence Cultural Equity Initiative Director Raymond Two Hawks Watson spoke about their work on the Providence Truth-Telling and Reconciliation Framework, grounded in the findings of the truth-telling report and enriched by the stories and perspectives of African heritage and Indigenous residents with generational familial and community connections to the four neighborhoods of Fox Point, Lippitt Hill, Upper South Providence, and West Elmwood, and to the mid-twentieth century urban redevelopment projects that A Matter of Truth documents as having occurred there. Afterwords, they spoke with Roger Williams University faculty member Charlotte Carrington Farmer about their work.

(Above) Brian and Ray described the Reconciliation Framework for the City of Providence that came out of “A Matter of Truth, The Struggle for African Heritage and Indigenous People Equal Rights in Providence, Rhode Island (1620-2020)“.