1619: 400 Years of History

Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH
August 20, 2019 – May 24, 2020

Afterlives of the Black Atlantic brings together works from the United States, Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa that collectively explore the complexities of memory, identity, and belonging in the wake of the transatlantic slave trade.

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
June 8, 2019 – November 17, 2019

Timed to coincide with the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first Africans in Virginia in 1619, this special exhibition celebrates the extraordinary contributions that African American artists have made to art and culture since that time.

Muscarelle Museum of Art, Williamsburg, VA
November 6, 2019 – January 12, 2020

This exhibition marks the 400-year anniversary of the arrival of the first documented African slaves in Colonial Virginia that, while part of the greater narrative of slavery in the Americas, helped to set into motion the ongoing repercussions of this historical event. As a contemporary response to the 1619 commemoration in Virginia, 1619 / 2019 will feature art works from African American and Native American emergent and established artists in a variety of media expressing a complexity of experience, addressing the past and present.

Virginia Museum of History & Culture, Richmond, VA
June 22, 2019 – March 29, 2020

In commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in British North America, Determined: The 400-Year Struggle for Black Equality will examine the long history of black Americans as they have fought for freedom, equal justice, and access to opportunities. Their actions have pushed our nation ever closer to its ideal of universal equality.

Jamestown Settlement, Williamsburg, VA
November 10, 2019 – January 5, 2020

TENACITY: Women in Jamestown and Early Virginia is a special yearlong exhibition that explores little-known, captivating personal stories of real women in Jamestown and the early Virginia colony and their tenacious spirit and impact on a fledgling society.

The special exhibition is a legacy project of the 2019 commemoration, American Evolution, a national observance of the 400th anniversary of key historical events that occurred in Virginia in 1619 and continue to influence America today.

American History TV visited the Virginia Museum of History and Culture's exhibit on 400 years of African American history. Curator Karen Sherry focused on the period between 1619 and the Civil War, sharing stories about individuals who led slave revolts, educated fellow freed people, and participated in abolitionist John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry. This video was the first in a two-part tour.

Visualizing Emancipation is a highly interactive map of slavery’s end during the American Civil War. It finds patterns in the collapse of southern slavery, mapping the interactions between federal policies, armies in the field, and the actions of enslaved men and women on countless farms and city blocks. It encourages scholars, students, and the public to examine the wartime end of slavery in place, allowing a rigorously geographic perspective on emancipation in the United States.

In this video Adam Rothman discussed documents from the Library's manuscript collection relating to the lives of African-Americans in the 19th century in a conversation with Jesse J. Holland. Original event date was February 21, 2019.

Webcast recording: The John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress convened a symposium that brought together respected scholars to explore the intricate encounters of Africans, Europeans, and native people during this significant period in America's history. In 1619, a Dutch ship with about 20 Africans on board entered a port at the English colony of Jamestown, Virginia. This event is known as the arrival of the first recorded Africans to English North America. Their historic arrival, however, marked the beginning of a trend in colonial America, in which the people of Africa were taken from their motherland and consigned to lifelong slavery. From 1619 to 1650, during the life span of the first arriving Africans, racial discrimination emerged and chattel slavery would be codified into law. The symposium asked questions related to the historical importance of these events in 1619. For example, who were the Africans who arrived in Virginia in 1619, where did they come from, what world did they bring with them? What emerged from Africans' engagement with indigenous Native American populations and their spiritual and cultural life ways, and what is the enduring legacy of this encounter today? The event also featured a display of treasures and historical items from the Library of Congress' collections related to the early Americas. The symposium was held in collaboration with the Middle Passage Project of the College of William & Mary, the Virginia Commonwealth's 2019 Commemoration, and Norfolk State University.

Explore the dispersal of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic world.

This digital memorial raises questions about the largest slave trades in history and offers access to the documentation available to answer them. European colonizers turned to Africa for enslaved laborers to build the cities and extract the resources of the Americas. They forced millions of mostly unnamed Africans across the Atlantic to the Americas, and from one part of the Americas to another. Analyze these slave trades and view interactive maps, timelines, and animations to see the dispersal in action.

Freedom on the Move is an interactive database of fugitives from North American slavery. With the advent of newspapers in the American colonies, enslavers posted “runaway ads” to try to locate fugitives. Additionally, jailers posted ads describing people they had apprehended in search of the enslavers who claimed the fugitives as property.