Who’s up for Something Wrenching and Unending?

Who’s up for Something Wrenching and Unending? Reckoning with Maine’s Role in Global Slavery and the Emotional Resistance that Historical Recovery Work Provokes

For the past seven years, Atlantic Black Box co-founders Meadow Dibble and Kate McMahon have collaborated with community partners to surface historical truths about Maine’s entanglement in the slave trade and the global economy of enslavement—truths long excluded from local narratives and suppressed in collective memory. Along the way, they have encountered a wide spectrum of reactions that reveal just how fraught and emotionally charged the work of historical recovery can be. Drawing on Dr. Myisha Cherry’s scholarship on the role of emotions in moral and public life, this interactive workshop invites participants to explore common forms of resistance that arise here in Maine as communities confront suppressed histories, including denial, deflection, indifference, minimizing, and rationalization. Together, we will reflect on what these emotional responses signal about the deeper work of repair, accountability, and transformation ahead of us, and we’ll discuss how to engage this process with integrity and care.

Participants will leave with a foundational understanding of Maine’s entanglements with slavery, a clearer grasp of how regional myths were fashioned and perpetuated, and familiarity with emergent strategies and innovative approaches to historical recovery. They will also receive a practical take-home toolkit, including a curated folder of readings, links to ABB’s Maine Slaving Voyages map, a list of online resources, and a fact sheet featuring key statistics and selected primary source materials.

Presenters:  Lauress Lawrence, Community Leader in Equity & Engagement; Meadow Dibble, Founding Executive Director of Atlantic Black Box; Kate McMahon, Executive Director of Castine Historical Society; Adilah Muhammad, Founding Executive Director of The Third Place 

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Host or Publisher Martin Luther King Jr Planning Committee