The Simmons Center, in partnership with the Tomaquag Museum, hosted a free 6-day Black & Indigenous Summer Institute for Rhode Island rising 10th–12th grade students. The Summer Institute is designed within a restorative justice framework that centers self-reflection, critical thinking, and reading against the grain to reframe how we understand history and heal our communities.

In a joint project with the International Institute of Social History, the Cluster unites scholars from across continents. Since 2021, the group has met in Amsterdam and Jamaica to examine racial capitalism, colonial rule, and slavery’s lasting impact, fostering global discussions on these interconnected histories.

The Stolen Relations project, launched in 2015 at Brown University, seeks to recover and reinterpret the often hidden histories of Indigenous slavery, offering a fresh perspective on the colonial past and its lasting impact.

Dr. Brenda Allen, President of Lincoln University, recounts her early role as Associate Provost and Director of Institutional Diversity and Allen's key role in guiding the Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice through complex debates over slavery’s legacy, ultimately helping produce a landmark report grounded in intellectual rigor and institutional courage.

Amanda E. Strauss reflects on the powerful connection between art and archives through Jess Hill’s quilt “Oh Say, Can You See: America and Its Birth” (2022). Now part of the Hay’s permanent collection, it is displayed on its grand staircase. For Strauss, the piece captures the layered history the Center explores and evokes personal memories of her own beginnings in textile storytelling.

From 2022–2023, the Reimagining New England Histories committee collaborated with educators and scholars to create K–12 lessons centering Black and Indigenous experiences in New England. Their work reframed Thanksgiving, highlighted mariners’ histories, and launched a student podcast contest to challenge colonial narratives.

In 2023, the HTRC celebrated the launch of "White Supremacy, Racism, and the Coloniality of Anti-Trafficking", an anthology exploring how anti-trafficking efforts are rooted in systemic racism and colonial power structures. The cluster also premiered "Fly in Power", a documentary on Asian migrant massage workers, highlighting labor exploitation and racial justice.

As part of the Simmons Center’s 10th Anniversary series, writer and ritual performance artist Cherise Morris ’16 returned to Brown for the premiere of the cosmic matter of Black lives. Through poetry, prayer, and ancestral wisdom, Morris invited audiences into a ritual performance exploring diasporic healing, ecological harmony, and racial justice.

In 2022–2023, Allyson LaForge, supported by the Simmons Center, led key efforts to inventory 10,000 cultural Belongings at the Tomaquag Museum. She helped adapt the museum’s cataloging system to reflect Indigenous knowledge systems, laying the groundwork for a major move and future use of Traditional Knowledge Labels.

To mark its 10th anniversary, the Center presented 'Racial Slavery, Marronage, and Freedom', a retrospective featuring Edouard Duval-Carrié, Jess Hill, and Rénold Laurent. Each artist, a longtime collaborator of the Center, debuted new work exploring resistance, memory, and the legacy of slavery through bold, layered visual storytelling and reflection.

In 2022–2023, the Carceral State Reading Group deepened its study of political imprisonment, focusing on Brown’s acquisition of Mumia Abu-Jamal’s papers. Members attended conferences, built relationships with activists, and collaborated with student and community groups on campaigns like Stop Cop City.

In 2022–2023, Decolonization at Brown (DAB) underwent vital restructuring to ensure sustainability, refocusing efforts and recruiting new members. Despite mid-year challenges, DAB hosted key events, including a screening of "What is this Place" and a discussion with Azad Essa on "Hostile Homelands".

Inspired in part by cultural theorist Stuart Hall, Unfinished Conversations (UC) is a new form of curatorial practice, public engagement, and programming to collect, give voice to, and provide a platform for untold histories, memories, and narratives related to the history of racialized slavery and its afterlives.

In 2022–2023, (De)Cypher: Black Notes on Culture and Criticism explored Black culture through study groups and conversations with working-class artists. The journal refined its methodology, culminating in a forthcoming edition, and hosted Cyphering While Black, a multimedia series featuring live discussions with independent hip-hop artists.

In 'Speculative Ecologies The Intimate Bond of Freedom and Green', Renée Elizabeth Neely-TANNER creates layered, intuitive landscapes inspired by the Maroon communities of the Dismal Swamp. Drawing on memory, history, and place, each painting becomes a map of liberation—spiritual, emotional, and ancestral—guided by color, texture, and care.

The Symbolic Slave Garden Student Caretaker Group is restoring and reimagining the garden as a living archive of Black land stewardship. Through historical research, hands-on gardening, and collaboration with other heritage gardens, students honor the resilience, knowledge, and cultural legacies of enslaved Africans.

The Cluster's Slavery, Democracy, and Racial Violence in the Americas workshop united scholars and activists to examine colonialism’s legacy in shaping racial violence, linking slavery’s history to modern issues like police brutality and mass incarceration.

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.