AR-v.5 (1-27):Layout 1 - Hutchins Center - Harvard University

Research Projects and Outreachstruggle for independence. As a result of the researchconducted by Jane Ailes of Research Consultants,the project has been able to identify 5,000 AfricanAmericans by surveying the 80,000 pensionapplications of Revolutionary War veterans andcomparing these names to Federal Census recordsfrom 1790 to 1850. To date, the testimony in thepension files has proved to be fascinating readingand includes stories of battles, troop movements,whom a man served under, his transfers amongstregiments and commanders, when he marriedand whom he married, place of birth, place of enlistment,and where he lived after the war. With thisinformation, the Du Bois Institute and the SAR willencourage descendants of these individuals toapply for membership in the SAR or the Daughtersof the American Revolution (DAR).Black Periodical and Literature ProjectDirector: Henry Louis Gates, Jr.The Black Periodical Literature Project (BPLP) isdevoted to the study of black imaginative literaturepublished in America between 1827 and 1940. Thisarchive has been collected on microfiche, and anindex to these items on CD-ROM has been availablein most university libraries for a decade. Mostrecently, the archive was transferred to PDF files.The balance of the database is being collated andorganized for publication online and in printform for researchers, scholars, genealogists, andstudents.Central Africa Diaspora to the Americas ProjectCo-Directors: Linda M. Heywood andJohn K. Thornton (Boston University)The two main avenues of inquiry for this projectinclude research on, “The Kingdom of Kongo in theWider World, 1400–1800” and “Angola and its Rolein the African Diaspora, 1500–1990.” The firstavenue explores the ways in which Kongo’s engagementwith the West influenced the developmentof African American culture in all the Americas. Thesecond large area of focus examines Portuguesecolonialism, its relationship to the African Diaspora,and current implications for the Mbundu andUmbundu speaking parts of modern-day Angola.This aspect of the project also includes Angola’smost famous queen, Queen Njinga of Matamba, andher legacy in Africa and in the Atlantic World.National Endowment for the HumanitiesSummer InstituteCo-Directors: Patricia Sullivan (Universityof South Carolina) and Waldo E. Martin(University of California, Berkeley)Twenty-five college teachers from all parts of theUnited States participated in the 2008 NEHSummer Institute on “African American Civil RightsStruggles in the Twentieth Century.” Building on aseries of institutes sponsored by the W. E. B. Du BoisInstitute since 1997, the program included leadingscholars and writers in the fields of AfricanAmerican history, literature, religion and music,along with presentations by civil rights activists.The intensive four week long program of readingand discussion introduces teachers to new andrecent scholarship, and provides a forum foridentifying oral histories, memoirs, films, music andarchival sources that document the broad historicalsweep of the Civil Rights Movement and its culturallegacy. In evaluating the program, one teacherwrote that it “completely recast my understandingnot only of African American history but Americanhistory in general.”New Genetics and the Trans-Atlantic SlaveDatabase Working GroupCo-Directors: Henry Louis Gates, Jr. andEvelynn M. HammondsUnder the direction of Professors Henry LouisGates, Jr., and Evelynn M. Hammonds, the NewGenetics and the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Working