Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice

2025 Annual Report

Breadcrumb

On December 13, 2025, the Brown community experienced an act of senseless violence. The Simmons Center students, staff, and faculty are grateful to our community, which reached out to offer support during this challenging time. As we continue to work toward healing and recovery, we remain committed to advancing a wide range of ideas, perspectives, and experiences to advance knowledge and understanding.

Image from a ritual performance of “the cosmic matter of Black lives” by Cherise Morris ’16, 2022. Photo by Rythum Vinoben.
 
two hands pouring out water from a vase among dried plants, feathers and candles
News from the Simmons Center

2025 Annual Report Update: Director's Note

Professor Bogues reflects on the year 2025 within its relations to the Simmons Center highlighting two major achievements including the co-curated exhibition, “In Slavery’s Wake: The Making of Black Freedom” and a revitalized MA in Public Humanities at Brown.

Research Clusters & Seminar Series

Research Clusters

News from the Simmons Center

2025 Annual Report Update: Human Trafficking Research Cluster

This project fosters collaborative critical inquiry into the study of human trafficking, as well as cultivates an intersectional framework that acknowledges the ways in which race, class, gender, nation, and sexual forms of power and inequality govern contemporary anti-trafficking efforts.
News from the Simmons Center

2025 Annual Report Update: Race, Slavery, Colonialism and Capitalism

This research cluster is reshaping scholars’ understanding of the history and growth of capitalism and brings together the best scholars on this subject in the world. This three-year project is co-led by the Simmons Center and the International Institute of Social History (Amsterdam).
News from the Simmons Center

2025 Annual Report Update: Slavery & Finance Research Cluster

This endeavor to “follow the money” investigates the technologies of finance that facilitated the Transatlantic Slave Trade and Atlantic plantation complex by developing new perspectives on the financial mechanics of slaving operations and the trade’s relationship to maritime insurance, commodity brokerage, currency arbitrage, banking, and other elements of the financial services industry.
News from the Simmons Center

2025 Annual Report Update: Stolen Relations Research Cluster

This community-based project, housed at Brown University, is a collaborative effort to build a database of enslaved Indigenous people throughout time all across the Americas in order to promote greater understanding of the historical circumstances and ongoing trauma of settler colonialism.

Seminar Series

News from the Simmons Center

2025 Annual Report Update: Carceral State Reading Group

The Simmons Center facilitates a year-long reading group which focuses on historical and contemporary issues of imprisonment, incarceration, captivity, criminalization, and policing. The reading group is a collaboration between various sectors of the Providence community and the Center.

Events

Simmons Center Fellows' Talks

Mack Scott – A Pernicious Influence: The Pioneering Act of Detribalization in Rogue Island

October 7, 2024
Visiting Assistant Professor of Slavery and Justice Dr. Mack Scott III gave a talk examining Rhode Island’s role in developing processes used by Euro-Americans to dispossess and detribalize Indigenous Nations, focusing on the 1880 effort to detribalize the Narragansett Nation. He highlighted how this history shapes ongoing struggles for recognition and justice.
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Latoya Teague – Rituals of Refusal: African Diasporic Storytelling, Writing Practices, and Resistive Acts of Care

February 28, 2025
Simmons Center/Watson Institute Joint Historical Injustice and Democracy Postdoctoral Research Associate Latoya Teague presented her research exploring how marginalized communities use storytelling, writing and creation as tools to uplift and preserve collective memory, highlighting literary activism and the power of telling stories on one’s own terms through reading, writing and narrative practices.
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Christopher Baldwin – Chains of Captivity: The Atlantic Odyssey of the St. James Shipmates

March 3, 2025
Simmons Center/Watson Institute Joint Historical Injustice and Democracy Postdoctoral Research Associate Christopher Baldwin delivered a talk on the role of maritime warfare in shaping racial slavery and the African diaspora in the early modern Atlantic. He highlighted how repeated captivities and voyages forged survival networks across diverse ethnic and cultural groups.
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Selected Events

Premal Dharia – Dismantling Mass Incarceration with Premal Dharia

October 30, 2024
Executive Director of the Institute to End Mass Incarceration at Harvard Law School and Brown alumna, Premal Dharia ’00, returned to campus to speak about mass incarceration and her new co-edited volume, “Dismantling Mass Incarceration: A Handbook for Change.”
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Susan Stark – Being Responsible and Making Reparations: A Path to Repair of the Past

November 4, 2024
Professor Susan Stark gave a talk proposing a hybrid framework for understanding reparations that combines backward-looking, forward-looking and structural approaches. Her talk emphasized the importance of centering the experiences of harmed communities when considering how to meaningfully repair historical injustices.
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Frances Bell - Mobility and the Law in the Haitian Revolution Atlantic

November 11, 2024
As part of the Emerging Scholars series, Frances Bell, visiting assistant professor of history at Bates College, presented her research, which examines how enslaved migrants from Saint-Domingue used legal frameworks and mobility to resist re-enslavement after arriving in the U.S. during the Haitian Revolution.
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Major Events

Public Humanities Projects

At the Simmons Center

Global Curatorial Project

Reimagining New England Histories

Public Engagement & Education

Collaboration Reflections

Academic Program

Students, Fellows & Staff

News from the Simmons Center

2025 Annual Report Update: Graduating Student Reflections

Reflections from Arman Deendar ’25, Shravya Sompalli ’25, Melaine Ferdinand-King ’25 Ph.D. in Africana Studies, Kevin Carter ’25, Nélari Figueroa Torres ’2, 5Laurie Tamayo ’25, and Dillon Stone ’25

Acknowledgements

New Art Acquisitions

Gratitude to All Our Supporters

The work of the Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery & Justice would not be possible without the support of the Office of the President, the Office of the Provost, the Office of the Dean of the Faculty, and the Office of the Dean of the College. Thank you to all the dedicated individuals on the President’s Advisory Council on the Simmons Center and the Faculty Advisory Board who continue to provide guidance for our work.

  • The Simmons Center would like to sincerely thank our major donors for their support:
  • Ms. Barbara and Mr. Tom G. Bale ’63
  • Sheryl D. Brissett Chapman ’71 LHD’19 hon.
  • Mrs. Emily H. Cavanagh ’91 and Mr. Michael Cavanagh
  • Ms. Alana K. Choquette ’96 and Mr. Paul J. Choquette, III ’97
  • Mrs. Ann S. Coles ’63
  • Mr. Edouard Duval-Carrie
  • Ms. Donna Emma P’17, P’20 and Mr. Larry Davis P’17, P’20
  • Mr. David Haas ’78
  • Ms. Holly R. Hagens ’93 and Mr. Todd Sisitsky
  • Mrs. Libby A. Heimark ’76, P’11, P’14, P’17 and Mr. Craig F. Heimark ’76, P’11, P’14, P’17
  • Ms. Sharon and Mr. Joseph Holston
  • Mr. Daniel L. Kurtz ’65 and Ms. Shveta Kakar
  • Ms. Debra L. Lee ’76 LHD’14 hon.
  • Dr. Dennis Lee, M.D. ’95 and Dr. Heena K. Lee
  • Mr. Luis A. Lopez ’90, P’26
  • Christina H. Paxson, Ph.D. and Ari Gabinet P’19, PMD’20
  • Mrs. Patricia and Mr. Timothy R. Schantz ’73
  • Ruth J. Simmons, Ph.D. LHD’12 hon.
  • Mr. E. Paul Sorensen ’71, ScM’75, Ph.D.’77, LHD’19 hon., P’06, P’06 and Ms. Joan Wernig Sorensen ’72, LHD’19 hon., P’06, P’06
  • Ms. Ricki Stern P’19, P’21 and Mr. Evan C. Guillemin P’19, P’21
  • Mr. Preston C. Tisdale ’73, P’10, P’10 MPH’16 MD’16, P’12 and Mrs. Maria d. Tisdale P’10, P’10 MPH’16 MD’16, P’12
  • Mr. Lawrence H. Title ’67, P’13
  • Ms. Mary E. Vascellaro ’74, LHD’24 hon., P’07 and Mr. Jerome C. Vascellaro ’74, LHD’24 hon., P’07
  • Abrams Foundation
  • American Endowment Foundation
  • The Mellon Foundation
  • Firelight Media
  • Jewish Community Foundation
  • The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
  • The Wyncote Foundation
  • Anonymous Donors

We also wish to thank the Friends of the Center for all of their work since the beginning. Each year the work of the Center broadens and deepens. Each contribution sustains our work. A special thanks to Elise Kirk and Erin Wells Design for providing graphic design support to the Center, and to Ben Kaplan, our exhibition installer. Finally, we would like to especially thank Nelson Ramos, Danny Lapati, and Robert Farizer, the Center’s caretakers and groundskeeper, for creating the clean and beautiful spaces in which we can do this work.