Race, Religion, and Legal Interpretation in Early Black America

Authors:

Zion Dixon, Terrence Johnson

Date Created:

2025-01-01

Course Title:

Professor:

Not specified

About Paper:

Enslaved Blacks saw themselves as active participants in the and the Schlesinger Library. Legal documents from the U.S. construction of American law and created new arguments for Supreme Court and 18th-century legal cases in Massachusetts understanding freedom. Black communities in the 18th Century, were examined. Research drew on prominent thinkers in the particularly in New England, developed legal strategies to engage fields of race, religion, and law, such as A. Leon Higginbotham’s with the law to end slavery and fight for religious liberty. With concept of legally constructed racial inferiority to examine how the aid of legal petitions, biblical texts, and communal traditionsBlack petitioners engaged with the law, and W.E.B. Du Bois’s enslaved and free Blacks inserted themselves within the legal notion of double consciousness to explore how Black Americans narrative of emerging state constitutions. Blacks engaged with navigated white legal and religious spaces. Analysis of these the moral and legal codes of the Constitution by asserting their materials suggests that enslaved Black individuals invented ways rights to religious expression under the First Amendment. This to participate in legal actions to expand democratic possibilities project examines how actively engaging with scripture and Black before the ratification of the Constitution. For example, enslaved historical maneuvers may have provided an alternative way to Blacks in Massachusetts petitioned for their freedom through an interpret and therefore appropriate the Constitution. To better appeal to religious liberty. In light of growing research in archival understand the neglected scholarship and narratives of enslaved work, this interdisciplinary project raises new questions about how and free persons who played an active role in the courts, archival thosewholackedlegalrightsandwerepresumedtohavenoagency research was conducted at the Massachusetts Historical Society reshaped discussions on religion and law. 164 Summer Humanities and Arts Research Program Massachusetts Prison Activism: Digital Archives, Public History Jamie Herfort, Thomas Dichter Harvard College | Eliot House | History | 2027 The 1973 Massachusetts Walpole Prison Takeover was a three observer reports.The goal of this summer’s project is to continue month period in which the prisoners peacefully assumed control digitizing and preserving these written reports, most of which of the prison following a correctional officers’ strike. At the exist in paper based formats.Through phone scanning the reports time of the takeover the prisoners had organized themselves into are being converted into digital files and made easily accessible the National Prisoners Reform Association (NPRA), a union in ensuring long-term preservation. which they coordinated the take over, the daily operations, and The reports themselves reveal the relationships between maintained order inside Walpole. During this time period the the prisoners, observers, and guards shedding a light on commissioner initiated a civilian observer program composed of the accountability that emerged externally from the prison students, lawyers, clergy, activists, and community members who administration. This ongoing development of this digital archive entered the prison daily to document and monitor the conditions within the prison. is meant to support incoming research in prison reform, abolition, and history. By making these reports accessible the project not These reports provide a firsthand insight into life in the prison, only safeguards a critical historical record but also highlights the self governance and the community oversight during this perspectives that are often excluded from traditional institutional moment. This project is centered on the digitization of these narratives. Mapping the Export Economy of Roman and Post-Roman Africa Kyler Hoogendoorn-Ecker, Reed Morgan, Michael McCormick Harvard College | Dunster House | Comparative Literature | 2027 African red slip (ARS) ware is a type of terra sigillata, or Visualizing the locations of different forms of ARS, which can be “fine ware” pottery, produced in North Africa from the first dated, or at least periodized, according to their typology, allows to seventh century AD as table ware, and one of the most for a comparative analysis of different periods, illustrating how extensively distributed ceramics in the late Roman and late politicalevents,liketheVandalconquestsofNorthAfrica,affected antique Mediterranean. The intensive production and widespread networks of exchange across the Mediterranean world. distribution of ARS during this period makes it an excellent tool fortrackinggeographicalpatternsofproductionandexchangeover Current results, focusing on find sites in Sicily, suggests a time. With the help of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), downturn in the prevalence of ARS in Sicily, and therefore of Sicilian trade with North Africa, following or even slightly before this project has used an analysis of ARS findings as a heuristic the Vandalic conquests, as later forms of ARS are distributed far to analyze broader patterns of economic (non-)integration in the less widely across the island than earlier forms. Future analysis Roman and post-Roman Mediterranean. will be based on an expansion of the data set to include information By creating a relational database with data from printed and from the Western and Eastern Mediterranean, and our project will digital catalogues of ARS finds across the Western and Eastern use that additional data to expand our findings on trade patterns to Mediterranean, as well assites in Britain and Germany, this project a much larger region. created geographic visualizations (maps) of large amounts of data. Mapping Color in History: Data Cleanup and the Digital Humanities Daniel Kim, Tracy Stuber, Jinah Kim Harvard College | Quincy House | History and Science | 2026 Mapping Color in History (MCH) is a digital research platform the MCH platform to new users, explaining technical analysis that enables interdisciplinary, collaborative research on colorants techniques through interviews with experts, and emphasizing the in various Asian paintings. In particular, the database provides importance of the digital humanities. This summer’s research insights on the analyses of pigments used in Asian paintings, project has made the database more reliable and accessible, which and the history behind their uses, to the broader public. This will enhance scholarly analysis of pigment usage and its historical SHARP project supports MCH by improving the accuracy and trends across South Asia. This work supports the MCH project comprehensiveness of the art historical data in the MCH database. team in refining the visualization tools and preparing forthcoming Some methods used include data cleanup through systematic publications related to pigment analysis on historical Asian art. By checks of the database and entering new data from existing strengthening data practices and fostering engagement, this project analytical reports. Additionally, a series of blog essays will be advances the goals of MCH and the broader understanding of art, published to engage MCH with a wider audience by introducing historical conservation, and the digital humanities. The Films of Stanley Kubrick, Screen Violence, and the Cold War Jona Liu, Justin Weir Harvard College | Dunster House | Comparative Literature | 2028 This research project will help prepare for a new course in the in particular, with an attention to why and how Kubrick draws Spring on the films and influence of Stanley Kubrick. Through a inspiration from artists & designers throughout his promotional comprehensive survey and analysis of Kubrick’s filmography, the materials and his later films (e.g., Barry Lyndon (1975), The project will consider the significance of his work, with a particularShining (1980), Eyes Wide Shut (1999)). While our research will attention to the aesthetics and role of violence within historical ansupport the foundations for a course on the topic, in the long term, cultural contexts. The project also involves thorough archival and it will also provide the groundwork for further distinct scholarly media research on Kubrick’s background in photography, as well researchandfuturepublicationonthesignificanceandimplications as supporting and supplementary materials from across his films; of Stanley Kubrick’s work. 166 Summer Humanities and Arts Research Program Andvari's Ring Laura Martens, Kristine Greive Harvard College | Pforzheimer House | Germanic Languages and Literatures | 2027 Andvari’s Ring is a historical fantasy novel that reimagines to produce a 50,000-word draft by summer’s end, with a strong the first third of The Volsunga Saga from the perspective of emphasis on historical and mythological accuracy guiding the Signy, a central yet often overlooked female character. While creative process. The manuscript will incorporate interdisciplinary later sections of the saga, particularly the exploits of Sigurd research using Houghton Library materials, including Icelandic the dragon slayer, have inspired extensive artistic adaptation herbal commonplace books and medieval astrology, to ground its across opera, poetry, and children’s literature in the 19th and magicalelementsinhistoricallyplausibledetail. Theintegrationof 20th centuries, the earlier narrative remains underexplored. This potion making, shamanistic practices, and astrological divination novel interrogates the generational roots of violence within the into the story creates tensions between characters who relate to Volsung family, centering Signy’s experience of a forced marriage magic differently. Whether they are hopelessly gullible, fatal and the destruction of her kin as a lens through which to skeptics, or truly interacting with powers beyond their own, the examine the long-term cost of revenge. Other themes, including characters in Andvari’s Ring occupy a world where one’s beliefs cultural/religious differences and the importance of storytelling, can alter reality itself. also play a crucial role in Andvari’s Ring. The project aims Pivot Points Theresa Straw, Hannah Marcus, Josh Gorman Harvard College | Adams House | History of Science | 2028 When a politician changes their mind, modern culture and media examining historical responses to and impacts of scientific are quick to condemn them as grifters or opportunists. Years-old upheaval. Through the display and analysis of instruments related social media posts are frequently dredged up in bids to expose to significant experiments or discoveries, I will explore historic individuals’ contradictory stances. These figures are then branded moments of uncertainty and the varied responses they provoked. as unprincipled, untrustworthy, and unelectable. These will include experimenters who rejected their own results while the scientific community moved on around them; scientists Despite its direct contradiction with the scientific method, this who countered dismissal and skepticism via drastic means; eras phenomenon is hardly limited to political or social spheres. When where fear of error or deviation caused entire fields to lag widely held scientific understandings are proven to be incorrect, behindtechnologicalcapabilities; andmomentsoftensionbetween scientistswhootherwiseleadinnovationarelabeledasincompetent or even ill-intentioned. As a society, we seem to invariably defaultculture, religion, science, and communication. to an intrinsic hostility toward uncertainty. This problem is also Rather than prescribing solutions, this exhibit will aim to depict anything but modern. the psychology and contextual nuances of historic struggles with My research with Harvard’s Collection of Historical Scientific uncertainty. Consideration of these dynamics across time invites a reflection on the flaws that make us human, placing our modern Instruments will culminate in the assembly of a mini-exhibit responses in context with our legacies of productive error. Summer Program for Undergraduates in Data Science

Abstract:

Enslaved Blacks saw themselves as active participants in the and the Schlesinger Library. Legal documents from the U.S. construction of American law and created new arguments for Supreme Court and 18th-century legal cases in Massachusetts understanding freedom. Black communities in the 18th Century, were examined. Research drew on prominent thinkers in the particularly in New England, developed legal strategies to engage fields of race, religion, and law, such as A. Leon Higginbotham’s with the law to end slavery and fight for religious liberty. With concept of legally constructed racial inferiority to examine how the aid of legal petitions, biblical texts, and communal traditionsBlack petitioners engaged with the law, and W.E.B. Du Bois’s enslaved and free Blacks inserted themselves within the legal notion of double consciousness to explore how Black Americans narrative of emerging state constitutions. Blacks engaged with navigated white legal and religious spaces. Analysis of these the moral and legal codes of the Constitution by asserting their materials suggests that enslaved Black individuals invented ways rights to religious expression under the First Amendment. This to participate in legal actions to expand democratic possibilities project examines how actively engaging with scripture and Black before the ratification of the Constitution. For example, enslaved historical maneuvers may have provided an alternative way to Blacks in Massachusetts petitioned for their freedom through an interpret and therefore appropriate the Constitution. To better appeal to religious liberty. In light of growing research in archival understand the neglected scholarship and narratives of enslaved work, this interdisciplinary project raises new questions about how and free persons who played an active role in the courts, archival thosewholackedlegalrightsandwerepresumedtohavenoagency research was conducted at the Massachusetts Historical Society reshaped discussions on religion and law. 164 Summer Humanities and Arts Research Program Massachusetts Prison Activism: Digital Archives, Public History Jamie Herfort, Thomas Dichter Harvard College | Eliot House | History | 2027 The 1973 Massachusetts Walpole Prison Takeover was a three observer reports.The goal of this summer’s project is to continue month period in which the prisoners peacefully assumed control digitizing and preserving these written reports, most of which of the prison following a correctional officers’ strike. At the exist in paper based formats.Through phone scanning the reports time of the takeover the prisoners had organized themselves into are being converted into digital files and made easily accessible the National Prisoners Reform Association (NPRA), a union in ensuring long-term preservation. which they coordinated the take over, the daily operations, and The reports themselves reveal the relationships between maintained order inside Walpole. During this time period the the prisoners, observers, and guards shedding a light on commissioner initiated a civilian observer program composed of the accountability that emerged externally from the prison students, lawyers, clergy, activists, and community members who administration. This ongoing development of this digital archive entered the prison daily to document and monitor the conditions within the prison. is meant to support incoming research in prison reform, abolition, and history. By making these reports accessible the project not These reports provide a firsthand insight into life in the prison, only safeguards a critical historical record but also highlights the self governance and the community oversight during this perspectives that are often excluded from traditional institutional moment. This project is centered on the digitization of these narratives. Mapping the Export Economy of Roman and Post-Roman Africa Kyler Hoogendoorn-Ecker, Reed Morgan, Michael McCormick Harvard College | Dunster House | Comparative Literature | 2027 African red slip (ARS) ware is a type of terra sigillata, or Visualizing the locations of different forms of ARS, which can be “fine ware” pottery, produced in North Africa from the first dated, or at least periodized, according to their typology, allows to seventh century AD as table ware, and one of the most for a comparative analysis of different periods, illustrating how extensively distributed ceramics in the late Roman and late politicalevents,liketheVandalconquestsofNorthAfrica,affected antique Mediterranean. The intensive production and widespread networks of exchange across the Mediterranean world. distribution of ARS during this period makes it an excellent tool fortrackinggeographicalpatternsofproductionandexchangeover Current results, focusing on find sites in Sicily, suggests a time. With the help of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), downturn in the prevalence of ARS in Sicily, and therefore of Sicilian trade with North Africa, following or even slightly before this project has used an analysis of ARS findings as a heuristic the Vandalic conquests, as later forms of ARS are distributed far to analyze broader patterns of economic (non-)integration in the less widely across the island than earlier forms. Future analysis Roman and post-Roman Mediterranean. will be based on an expansion of the data set to include information By creating a relational database with data from printed and from the Western and Eastern Mediterranean, and our project will digital catalogues of ARS finds across the Western and Eastern use that additional data to expand our findings on trade patterns to Mediterranean, as well assites in Britain and Germany, this project a much larger region. created geographic visualizations (maps) of large amounts of data. Mapping Color in History: Data Cleanup and the Digital Humanities Daniel Kim, Tracy Stuber, Jinah Kim Harvard College | Quincy House | History and Science | 2026 Mapping Color in History (MCH) is a digital research platform the MCH platform to new users, explaining technical analysis that enables interdisciplinary, collaborative research on colorants techniques through interviews with experts, and emphasizing the in various Asian paintings. In particular, the database provides importance of the digital humanities. This summer’s research insights on the analyses of pigments used in Asian paintings, project has made the database more reliable and accessible, which and the history behind their uses, to the broader public. This will enhance scholarly analysis of pigment usage and its historical SHARP project supports MCH by improving the accuracy and trends across South Asia. This work supports the MCH project comprehensiveness of the art historical data in the MCH database. team in refining the visualization tools and preparing forthcoming Some methods used include data cleanup through systematic publications related to pigment analysis on historical Asian art. By checks of the database and entering new data from existing strengthening data practices and fostering engagement, this project analytical reports. Additionally, a series of blog essays will be advances the goals of MCH and the broader understanding of art, published to engage MCH with a wider audience by introducing historical conservation, and the digital humanities. The Films of Stanley Kubrick, Screen Violence, and the Cold War Jona Liu, Justin Weir Harvard College | Dunster House | Comparative Literature | 2028 This research project will help prepare for a new course in the in particular, with an attention to why and how Kubrick draws Spring on the films and influence of Stanley Kubrick. Through a inspiration from artists & designers throughout his promotional comprehensive survey and analysis of Kubrick’s filmography, the materials and his later films (e.g., Barry Lyndon (1975), The project will consider the significance of his work, with a particularShining (1980), Eyes Wide Shut (1999)). While our research will attention to the aesthetics and role of violence within historical ansupport the foundations for a course on the topic, in the long term, cultural contexts. The project also involves thorough archival and it will also provide the groundwork for further distinct scholarly media research on Kubrick’s background in photography, as well researchandfuturepublicationonthesignificanceandimplications as supporting and supplementary materials from across his films; of Stanley Kubrick’s work. 166 Summer Humanities and Arts Research Program Andvari's Ring Laura Martens, Kristine Greive Harvard College | Pforzheimer House | Germanic Languages and Literatures | 2027 Andvari’s Ring is a historical fantasy novel that reimagines to produce a 50,000-word draft by summer’s end, with a strong the first third of The Volsunga Saga from the perspective of emphasis on historical and mythological accuracy guiding the Signy, a central yet often overlooked female character. While creative process. The manuscript will incorporate interdisciplinary later sections of the saga, particularly the exploits of Sigurd research using Houghton Library materials, including Icelandic the dragon slayer, have inspired extensive artistic adaptation herbal commonplace books and medieval astrology, to ground its across opera, poetry, and children’s literature in the 19th and magicalelementsinhistoricallyplausibledetail. Theintegrationof 20th centuries, the earlier narrative remains underexplored. This potion making, shamanistic practices, and astrological divination novel interrogates the generational roots of violence within the into the story creates tensions between characters who relate to Volsung family, centering Signy’s experience of a forced marriage magic differently. Whether they are hopelessly gullible, fatal and the destruction of her kin as a lens through which to skeptics, or truly interacting with powers beyond their own, the examine the long-term cost of revenge. Other themes, including characters in Andvari’s Ring occupy a world where one’s beliefs cultural/religious differences and the importance of storytelling, can alter reality itself. also play a crucial role in Andvari’s Ring. The project aims Pivot Points Theresa Straw, Hannah Marcus, Josh Gorman Harvard College | Adams House | History of Science | 2028 When a politician changes their mind, modern culture and media examining historical responses to and impacts of scientific are quick to condemn them as grifters or opportunists. Years-old upheaval. Through the display and analysis of instruments related social media posts are frequently dredged up in bids to expose to significant experiments or discoveries, I will explore historic individuals’ contradictory stances. These figures are then branded moments of uncertainty and the varied responses they provoked. as unprincipled, untrustworthy, and unelectable. These will include experimenters who rejected their own results while the scientific community moved on around them; scientists Despite its direct contradiction with the scientific method, this who countered dismissal and skepticism via drastic means; eras phenomenon is hardly limited to political or social spheres. When where fear of error or deviation caused entire fields to lag widely held scientific understandings are proven to be incorrect, behindtechnologicalcapabilities; andmomentsoftensionbetween scientistswhootherwiseleadinnovationarelabeledasincompetent or even ill-intentioned. As a society, we seem to invariably defaultculture, religion, science, and communication. to an intrinsic hostility toward uncertainty. This problem is also Rather than prescribing solutions, this exhibit will aim to depict anything but modern. the psychology and contextual nuances of historic struggles with My research with Harvard’s Collection of Historical Scientific uncertainty. Consideration of these dynamics across time invites a reflection on the flaws that make us human, placing our modern Instruments will culminate in the assembly of a mini-exhibit responses in context with our legacies of productive error. Summer Program for Undergraduates in Data Science

Source:

Harvard / Harvard College | Leverett House | English | 2028 / 2025

Topics:

historical, legal, black, analysi, history, prison, digital, house, report, ars, acros, mch

Co-authors:

@ziondixon445 , @terrencejohnson446