Same Ground: President's House, Valley Forge & the Question of Whose Story

Same Ground: Whose story does America 250 tell? Brown, LaRoche & Vance on slavery, freedom, and the founding. Join us on 7/6 in Philly.
About this Event

As the nation marks its 250th and a federal court fight over the President's House slavery exhibit plays out blocks away, two scholars who have spent their careers recovering the Black presence at America's founding share a stage. Dr. Cheryl LaRoche, the historical archaeologist who helped excavate the President's House and surface the nine people George Washington enslaved there, joins Sheilah Vance, Esq., author of Threshold to Valley Forge, who recovered the free Black people and enslaved Africans in Washington's ranks. The conversation features former Philadelphia City Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown.

Together, they tell the story of Valley Forge and the President's House: the Black soldiers who served the cause of freedom and the Black people enslaved in the nation's first white house. The year the country turns 250, in the city where it began, this is the rare conversation that puts the people behind the headlines in one room.