On this episode of The Photo Detective, I’m joined by Seth Rockman, author of Plantation Goods: A Material History of American Slavery. Seth’s groundbreaking research uncovers the economic and material ties that connected New England industries to the Southern plantation economy in the 19th century. From the labor of Rhode Island seamstresses to the cotton fields of Mississippi, his work reveals the intricate networks of production and exploitation that defined this era. Join us as we explore the stories of everyday objects and the lives they shaped across America’s divided landscape.

Seth Rockman is an associate professor of history at Brown University and serves on the faculty advisory board of Brown University’s Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice.

“In Slavery’s Wake,” a new exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, deals in huge themes and vast numbers. Over four centuries, an estimated 12 million Africans were transported across the ocean on more than 36,000 voyages, an epochal forced migration that reshaped societies on both sides of the Atlantic.

The seeds of the exhibition were planted in 2014, when a group of international curators met at Brown’s Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Race and Justice, which Prof. Anthony Bogues leads.

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture unveiled “In Slavery’s Wake: Making Black Freedom in the World”—its first international touring exhibition—Dec. 13. Through powerful forms of artistic expressions, such as quilting, music and ironwork, the exhibition reveals healing traditions rooted in the resilience of enslaved people.

Featuring more than 190 artifacts, 250 images, interactive stations and newly commissioned artworks, “In Slavery’s Wake” offers a transformative space to honor these legacies of strength and creativity. More information is available at nmaahc.si.edu/InSlaverysWake. The exhibition is open through June 8, 2025, in the museum’s Bank of America Special Exhibitions Gallery.

The exhibition delves into key questions about freedom and its expressions across six sections. Organized by the National Museum of African American History and Culture’s Center for the Study of Global Slavery and the Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice at Brown University, “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. The collective worked across geographies, cultures and languages, connecting the past and the present.

A review of the book “In Slavery’s Wake: Making Black Freedom in the World,” edited by Paul Gardullo, Johanna Obenda A.M. ’19, and Anthony Bogues, written by various contributors, which is a companion to the exhibition of the same name on view at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of African American History and Culture.

In its first international traveling exhibition, the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) in Washington is opening "In Slavery’s Wake: Making Black Freedom in the World."

Born of 10 years of collaboration with curators from around the world, the exhibition tells a global story of slavery and colonialism and one of freedom, fought for and obtained. NMAAHC and exhibition co-convener Brown University's Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice worked with partners and community members to gather 150 oral histories that add a modern voice to the story.

The exhibition "In Slavery's Wake,” at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of African American History and Culture, looks beyond the United States to tell a global story. Co-convened by the Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice, the Global Curatorial Project (GCP) is an international network of museums that has worked together over the last decade to put together this traveling exhibition, among other initiatives.

Exhibition Invites Visitors on a Journey of Collective Healing While Exploring the Enduring History of Slavery and Colonialism

The exhibition will delve into key questions about freedom and its expressions across six sections. 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. The collective worked across geographies, cultures and languages, connecting the past and the present.

The Newport Historical Society has named Simmons Center Adjunct Lecturer in Slavery and Justice Dr. Akeia de Barros Gomes, Native Newport scholar and curator, to spearhead the development of a new center for Black History, set to open at the Wanton-Lyman-Hazard House. The appointment marks a significant step in the organization’s efforts to highlight Newport’s diverse historical narrative.

A new Smithsonian book entitled "In Slavery's Wake: Making Black Freedom in the World," co-edited by Simmons Center Director Prof. Anthony Bogues, reckons with the enduring legacies of slavery and capitalism.

The book is the companion catalog to the exhibition of the same name that opens at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of African American History and Culture on December 13, 2024.

Simmons received the award for her accomplishments in higher education.

President Joe Biden presented former University President Ruth J. Simmons with the National Humanities Medal, an annual recognition of leaders in the humanities, during an Oct. 21 White House ceremony.

Simmons made history as the first African American woman president of an Ivy League institution when she served as Brown’s 18th president from 2001-2012. Simmons’ tenure at Brown and her work supporting equity in higher education were highlighted in a White House press release detailing honorees’ achievements.

As New York City intensifies its use of bureaucratic enforcement against massage workers, Red Canary Song is taking the city to court. The collective of Asian and migrant massage and sex workers has filed a lawsuit against the NYC Department of Buildings for refusing to release public records on its inspections and fines—documents they say will expose discriminatory targeting under the guise of regulation. Supported by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF), the suit underscores how anti-trafficking rhetoric and administrative policing have deepened economic instability and state violence against Asian migrant body workers.

When the Providence Preservation Society initially sought to sell a historic building in March, its past as the site of Providence's first newspaper and a boarding house was noted. However, there was no mention of the enslaved individuals who had lived and worked there. Traci Picard, Simmons Center Senior Research Assistant, was brought in to dig deeper into the building's history.

Picard's research revealed significant details, including that two generations of enslaved women, Ingow and her daughter Fanny, lived in the household. Her findings also dispelled the idea that the building's former owner, Carter, was an abolitionist.

Instead, Carter participated in the slave economy by printing flyers for runaway slaves while also publishing abolitionist materials, underscoring the complex relationship between business and slavery at the time. Now, with Picard’s 17-page report completed, the building is once again up for sale, but with a fuller understanding of its ties to slavery and its deeper historical significance.

A masterwork about forms of self-expression during the times of chattel slavery.

The National Museum of African American History & Culture and Smithsonian Books have produced what should be considered the definitive text for understanding Black people’s cultural contributions to world history and how the systemic implementation of slavery throughout the globe was and still is one of the key reasons for a significant amount of artifact conception and creation.

The Newport Historical Society (NHS) announced a $4.5 million capital campaign to restore Newport’s oldest colonial home and convert it to a museum de­voted to the region’s Black history. At an unveiling of plans for the 1697 Wanton-Lyman-Hazard House, NHS board President Douglas Newhouse hailed the conversion as a project to share the history of African Americans in Newport that has gone untold for the most part. “No other place in New England or perhaps the whole country will tell this history the way we will here at this house,” he said as he made note of Newport being a hub of the slave trade from colo­nial times to the early 19th century.

Akeia de Barros Gomes, Simmons Center Adjunct Lecturer in Slavery and Justice, grew up in Newport and attended the city’s public schools. She said she is pleased that generations of ad­vocates would have their efforts rewarded with the conversion of the house to a museum of Black history. A member of the NHS board, Gomes has consulted on the Wan­ton Lyman-Hazard House project.

SOAS University of London will award honorary degrees to six distinguished individuals at this year’s graduation ceremonies.

Professor Anthony Bogues will be awarded a Doctor of Literature (DLit) (honoris causa) in recognition of his substantial contribution to the studies of African and African diaspora political theory, African and Caribbean politics; Global South development issues; Caribbean Art; political economy of race, and slavery and the history of capitalism. The award also acknowledges his significant work as founder and Director of the Simmons Center.

Around 200 years ago, the area near the Rhode Island State House and the train station was home to a working-class neighborhood called Snowtown. It’s largely forgotten today, but a team of researchers is trying to change that. Globe RI’s Carlos Muñoz talks to two members of the Snowtown Project research team - Heather Olson and Traci Picard, Simmons Center Senior Research Assistant. They say they're aiming to "put those people back into the imagination, as real as people who matter."

“Wail on Whalers, a Portrait of Amos Haskins” by Felandus Thames, an “homage to escaped enslaved people who found autonomy in whaling,” is comprised of hairbeads strung on coated wire. The piece is part of the Mystic Seaport Museum's “Entwined” exhibition, which reimagines thousands of years of maritime history through Black and Indigenous worldviews and experiences.

"Entwined" is the culminating exhibition for the Reimagining New England Histories project organized by the Simmons Center at Brown University, Williams College, and Mystic Seaport Museum and generously funded by the Just Futures Initiative of the Mellon Foundation.

The Commemoration Lab, The Department of Art, Culture and Tourism (ACT,) and the Rhode Island Historical Society (RIHS) are commissioning nine creative practitioners to interrogate the ways that Providence residents construct and share memory and culture. Simmons Center Senior Research Assistant, Traci Picard, has been chosen as Writer in Residence for this project.

The Atlantic Ocean connects indigenous people along the coast of what is now New England and those in the western African nations of Ghana, Togo, and Benin. Kalunga, in the Bantu language widespread across Africa. Kuhtah in Pequot.

The depths of these connections are explored at the Mystic Seaport Museum in Mystic, CT–Pequot land–during “Entwined: Freedom, Sovereignty, and the Sea,” an exhibition breaking from the Museum’s tradition of telling maritime stories through a colonizer, shipbuilder, industrial, extractive perspective. Before starting any work, “Entwined” curator Akeia de Barros Gomes, Senior Curator of Maritime Social Histories at Mystic Seaport Museum and Simmons Center Visiting Scholar, assembled a committee of indigenous and African descended community members to discuss what they wanted to present and how.

"Entwined" is the culminating exhibition for the Reimagining New England Histories project organized by the Simmons Center at Brown University, Williams College, and Mystic Seaport Museum and generously funded by the Just Futures Initiative of the Mellon Foundation.

In this episode of the Africa-Caribbean Reasoning Series, Professor Anthony Bogues explores the deep historical and cultural ties linking Africa and the Caribbean, urging a reimagining of Pan-African solidarity for the present moment. Drawing on themes of colonial legacies, intellectual collaboration, and collective self-determination, Bogues calls for building real connections, through institutions, ideas, and shared struggles, that move beyond symbolism toward a more just and united global Black future.

Indigenous and Black people tell their own seafaring stories at Mystic Seaport Museum.

"Entwined" is the culminating exhibition for the Reimagining New England Histories project organized by the Simmons Center at Brown University, Williams College, and Mystic Seaport Museum and generously funded by the Just Futures Initiative of the Mellon Foundation.

This spring, Sophia Janssens and her classmates added nearly 33,000 words and over 300 references to Wikipedia articles as part of Dr. Mack Scott’s course “This is America,” which focused on people and events often marginalized or forgotten in American history. During the weeks of the course alone, their collective work on Wikipedia was viewed 237,000 times.

The question of innocence (and lack thereof) is central to western imperial projects and their determination of who deserves to be “saved” and who, on the other hand, is expendable. In this text, Elena Shih describes the ways through which sex workers in Thailand refuse what she characterizes as compulsory innocence and organize together the political conditions on being “bad.”

Growth made Rhode Island’s capital city vibrant, but multicultural, working-class neighborhoods were sacrificed in the process. Traci Picard, a Simmons Center Walking Tour Guide, historian, and graduate of the JNBC Public Humanities program at Brown University is also a researcher for the project.

On Thursday, October 19th, 2023, UNESCO, in partnership with Brown University, The University of the West Indies, and Liberty Hall (Jamaica), had the pleasure of hosting a groundbreaking dialogue on Sports and Racism at Liberty Hall, in Kingston, Jamaica, within the framework of the 4th Convening of the Cost of Racism Project.

As the discussion unfolded, Michael Holding, the renowned Jamaican sportsman, cricketer, and social justice advocate, engaged in a compelling conversation with Professor Anthony Bogues, the Director of the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice at Brown University, providing insight to the impact of racism on the life and careers of promising sportsmen and women and proposing how the issues of racism and discrimination could be overcome.

In the Martin Luther King Lecture on October 9, 2023, at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Prof. Anthony Bogues called for taking as an example not the dreaming, but the radical Martin Luther King, and addressing the problems of our present time. ‘Action is what makes us stand out as human beings.’

Prof. Bogues is the inaugural director of the Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery & Justice at Brown University and is a visiting professor of African and African diaspora thought at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

Trailblazer Dr. Ruth J. Simmons, the namesake for Brown University's Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice, sits down with TODAY's Jenna Bush Hager to talk about her new memoir “Up Home” in which she shares her journey from poverty in the segregated South to becoming the first Black president of an ivy league university.

Artscape producer James Baumgartner and morning host Luis Hernandez visited the Simmons Center to speak with artist Renée Elizabeth Neely-TANNER to discuss her exhibit "Speculative Ecologies: The Intimate Bond of Freedom and Green." Renée explains that she was inspired by the marshes into which communities escaped before the Civil War.

The stage is set for a historic and controversial vote in the 35th Legislature today, during which lawmakers will consider whether to trade Whistling Cay to the National Park Service in exchange for a parcel of land in Estate Catherineberg for the purpose of building a public K-12 school on St. John. During that session, Hadiya Sewer, University of the Virgin Islands Scholar-In-Residence and Visiting Scholar in the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice at Brown University, made a case for exploring other possibilities and referenced Malcolm X’s assertion that “land is the basis of all independence. Land is the basis of freedom, justice and equality.”

Arielle Julia Brown, 2015-2017 Public History of Slavery Graduate Fellow with the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice and founder and director of Black Spatial Relics, supports performance artists whose art contends with slavery, freedom and justice.

In 2023, a Rhode Island House Commission proposed some of the most ambitious sex work reforms in the state’s history, calling for decriminalization, police accountability, and protection for workers’ health and safety. Yet the final report, while groundbreaking, left out key recommendations on the racialized policing of Asian massage workers. Drawing from the testimony of advocates including Brown University professor Elena Shih, the piece highlights both the Commission’s progress and its silences, revealing how anti-trafficking policies continue to criminalize poverty and immigrant labor under the guise of protection.

Since March 20, the experiences of five Latinx and Caribbean restaurateurs in Providence have been featured in the Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice along with the experiences of four other local restaurant owners. The common thread stringing the stories together: Each restaurant owner migrated to the United States with hopes of bringing a piece of their heritage along with them.

Titled “Serving a Plate Back Home: Migration Stories of Latinx and Caribbean Restauranteurs in Providence, R.I.,” the exhibition consists of an audio interview series and photo collection that “offers a glimpse into the personal journeys and intentions behind five restaurants that function as enclaves for Latinx and Caribbean communities in Providence,” according to the event’s website.

Design, art magazine celebrates South Asian culture, aims to erase barriers to knowledge.

When Brown University released its landmark 2006 report documenting the institution’s historical involvement in slavery, many of its recommendations were one-time fixes: revising the university’s official history, creating memorials, and the like. Some, however, required longer-term engagement, such as the creation of the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice (CSSJ), a research hub focusing on the history of slavery and its contemporary impacts.

‘Indefinite’ presents Walker’s sociological findings on sleep hygiene, role of racism in jail culture

Book discusses consent, politics, violence of Antebellum era New Orleans

The Reimagining New England Histories: Historical Injustice, Sovereignty and Freedom project tells Black and Indigenous histories through publications, educational programming and exhibitions. Founded in 2021, the initiative is a grant-funded partnership between Williams College, Mystic Seaport Museum and the Brown Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice.

Lonnie G. Bunch III, the 14th Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, and Prof. Anthony Bogues, Director of Brown University's Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice (CSSJ), share about the Global Curatorial Project co-convened by the CSSJ and the Center for the Study of Global Slavery at the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

The Global Curatorial Project, which grew out of conversations that came after a conference at the CSSJ, includes the "In Slavery's Wake" exhibition and book project as well as the "Unfinished Conversations" oral histories project.

In the years since the 2021 Atlanta spa shootings, organizers have continued to grapple with how to mourn, resist, and reimagine safety for Asian massage and sex workers. In this conversation, Red Canary Song organizers Esther Kao and Elena Shih join Phi Nguyen of Asian Americans Advancing Justice–Atlanta to reflect on grief, labor, and the limits of “Stop Asian Hate.” They discuss how state violence, stigma, and sensationalism continue to endanger workers, and how art, care, and organizing sustain their communities amid ongoing loss.

Policing and criminalization of sex work hurts massage workers, even when they aren’t sex workers.

The shootings of Asian massage workers in Georgia this month have been framed as part of a surge of anti-Asian violence during the Covid-19 pandemic. But they’re also part of a longstanding problem: the violence against and the surveillance of migrant massage workers.

These women are vulnerable because of their race, their gender, their immigration status — and for the type of work they do. Asian massage parlors have long been a target of law enforcement and anti-trafficking organizations who see “illicit massage businesses” as loci of human trafficking.

Nearly all of these organizations have called for the increased surveillance and policing of massage businesses, and the result has been hundreds of raids across the country which have terrorized and criminalized massage workers. These systemic forms of violence cannot be divorced from the brutal killings of massage parlor workers in the Atlanta area on March 16.

A newly created research position is designed to shed light on some of the most deeply troubling elements of human history while exploring new ways of envisioning the future. Applications are currently being accepted for the two-year Historical Injustice and Democracy Postdoctoral Research Associate position, a joint project of the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice (CSSJ) and the Watson Institute—just one example of the growing relationship between the two, according to Edward Steinfeld, director of the Watson Institute.

Brown University, Williams College and the Mystic Seaport Museum scholars will use maritime history as a basis for studying the relationship between European colonization, dispossession of Native American land and racial slavery.

Annual Financial Report 2020
Like most institutions of higher education, Brown University faced enormous financial and operational challenges in Fiscal Year 2020 in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet despite the trying circumstances, Brown remains financially strong and fully committed to pursuing its ambitious plans for excellence.

The annual financial report offers an overview of the University’s financial statements, success in fundraising and investment performance. Covering Fiscal Year 2020, this year’s report highlights the ways in which the financial markets and growth of the economy created opportunities for excellent financial results for Brown, even in the midst of an unprecedented global health crisis.

In this conversation, Elena Shih and Andrew Crane join Thomas Thurston to unpack the global politics and moral economies behind anti-trafficking work. Drawing from years of research across business, labor, and human rights, they examine how well-intentioned efforts to combat trafficking can sometimes deepen inequality, blur accountability, and perpetuate harm under the banner of rescue.