In 2024, the Human Trafficking Research Cluster marked major milestones: launching a new book on sex worker health in Rhode Island, continuing collaborative research with Red Canary Song, and preparing to debut “Liberation Atlas,” a digital map of policing violence against Asian massage workers in NYC.

The Race, Medicine, and Social Justice Cluster reflects on a year of impactful scholarship and the profound loss of Dr. Lundy Braun. Co-led by Dr. Braun and Dr. Taneisha Wilson, the Cluster advanced critical work on racism in medicine and will continue to honor Dr. Braun’s legacy through ongoing events, research, and transformative public health advocacy.

The Mass Incarceration Punishment in America Research Cluster explored the roots and impact of mass incarceration, emphasizing race and anti-Black racism. In 2023–2024, it hosted author talks, live oral histories with formerly incarcerated individuals, and built an archive centering incarcerated voices through its Mass Incarceration Lab.

In its first year, the Slavery’s Financial History Research Cluster gathered Brown scholars to explore how slavery shaped global finance. Through guest lectures and collaborative discussions, the group emphasized "following the money" as key to uncovering new insights into slavery’s role in modern economic systems.

In 2023–2024, the Carceral State Reading Group served as a vital space for dialogue on captivity and repression, engaging with local and global crises. Anchored by Brown’s acquisition of Mumia Abu-Jamal’s archive, the group hosted a public symposium exploring resistance, political imprisonment, and organizing, with lasting materials now available for continued learning and action.

Every year, distinguished Brown scholars are nominated for Research Achievement Awards by their colleagues for conducting exceptional and transformative research. Amongst the 2025 selection is Manning Assistant Professor of American Studies and Simmons Center Fellow Elena Shih.

In Slavery’s Wake: Making Black Freedom in the World explores the history and enduring impact of the global slave trade through an understudied lens: the work of enslaved people and their descendants to build resilience and community through art, rebellion, spirituality and politics.

As a curatorial fellow for the Brown Arts Institute, Simmons Center Public Humanities Graduate Student Christina Young ’26 A.M. provided comprehensive support for Elysee Barakett's poignant installation ‘Presence of Absence’ from conceptualization to execution. Young collaborated closely with Barakett on both the workshop and installation components, coordinating with BAI's marketing team to create promotional material, securing exhibition space in the Lindemann Performing Arts Center, and facilitating installation. Her behind-the-scenes work helped to bring Barakett's deeply personal exploration of loss and memory to the Brown community through this collaborative, 55-foot mural installation. 

Historians at Brown University and Tribal members from across New England are launching a project they hope will bring awareness to the historic enslavement of Indigenous people in North America.

What does “reparatory justice” mean, and how is it different from “reparations?” These are some of the questions explored in this CBH Talk by Laura Trevelyan, who in 2016 learned that her ancestors were absentee owners of 1000 enslaved Africans, and Arley Gill, Chair of the Grenada National Reparations Committee, in conversation with Simmons Center Director Anthony Bogues.

The First Unitarian Church of Providence is confronting its history of benefiting from the slave trade through its new exhibit, “Owning History.” Traci Picard, Simmons Center Walking Tour guide and author of A Church in a Triangle: Race, Religion & Power in a Rhode Island Congregation 1720-1850 has led research to uncover these connections.

The Imagined New (or, What Happens When History is a Catastrophe?) – Volume III at The Africa Institute gathered artists, scholars, and students to explore war, grief, and hope. Presented with VIAD and the Ruth J. Simmons Center, the program combined lectures, performances, and conversations to examine how violence shapes our world—and how alternative futures might be imagined.

In Slavery’s Wake: Making Black Freedom in the World at the National Museum of African American History and Culture explores the global legacies of slavery, colonialism, and racial capitalism, and the enduring struggles for Black freedom. Through powerful storytelling, historical artifacts, and interactive displays, the exhibition foregrounds resistance—from shipboard rebellions to modern movements. Created in collaboration with the Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice, it underscores the importance of telling unvarnished histories at a time when such truths are increasingly under political threat.

'In Slavery’s Wake: Making Black Freedom in the World' at the National Museum of African American History and Culture explores the legacy of slavery and the ongoing struggle for freedom. Through artifacts, art, and immersive installations, the exhibition highlights both the horrors of enslavement and the resistance movements that followed. Created in collaboration with the Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice, it brings together global research to showcase the history of Black liberation across continents.

Prof. Brittany Friedman’s book explores the nature of carceral violence and its impact on marginalized communities. The event was moderated by Simmons Center Research Cluster Faculty Fellow Prof. Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve.

The event was part of a series hosted by the Mass Incarceration and Punishment in America Research Cluster and sponsored by the Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice.

When the American university took shape in the decades after the Civil War, slavery was an important subject of research almost from the start. But what does it mean to study slavery through historical records with inescapable biases? What counts as evidence, and who has the authority to make those determinations?

As many universities have begun to examine their involvement in slavery, Brown University's 2006 Slavery and Justice Report has served as a model for these studies which have now become a regular feature of the academic landscape.

Join WETA Arts host Felicia Curry as she explores "In Slavery’s Wake: Making Black Freedom in the World," a groundbreaking new exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. This powerful exhibit explores the lasting impact of slavery and the ways in which Black communities around the world have fought for freedom, resilience, and self-determination. Organized by the Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice at Brown University and the National Museum of African American History and Culture’s Center for the Study of Global Slavery, “In Slavery’s Wake: Making Black Freedom in the World” grew out of a decade-long collaboration between international curators, scholars and community members who were committed to sharing stories of slavery and colonialism in public spaces.

In December 2024, In Slavery’s Wake was unveiled as a new Smithsonian Institution exhibition at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington. In Slavery’s Wake, a global curatorial project which brings together over 100 artifacts, 250 images, and ten interactive presentations and films, is led by the Washington, D.C. museum and Brown University’s Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice.

In Slavery’s Wake will now make its way to museums on four continents through 2028. It is the largest traveling exhibition that the museum has undertaken, and each of the countries featured in the exhibition has a historical connection to slavery and colonialism.

Simmons Center Director Prof. Anthony Bogues spoke on a panel at Politics and Prose in Washington, D.C. about the recently-edited volume "In Slavery’s Wake." Prof. Bogues was joined by other editors of the volume, Dr. Paul Gardullo, a historian and curator at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) and director of its Center for the Study of Global Slavery; and Johanna Obenda, A.M. ’19, a curatorial specialist at NMAAHC who explores stories of the varied African diasporic experience through the lens of art, history, and culture.

This powerful collection of essays, brought to life with more than 150 illustrations, investigates the intertwined legacies of slavery, freedom, and capitalism. The publication is a companion to the exhibition "In Slavery’s Wake: Making Black Freedom in the World," on view at NMAAHC, and the documentary film, "Unfinished Conversations." All three projects came out of a set of conversations that began at Brown University in 2014 during a conference convened by the Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice.