Excerpt from the MacMillan Center news, originally published on October 1, 2019 by Alycia Hall, PhD Candidate in African American Studies and History, and Teanu Reid, PhD Student in African American Studies and History.

“What is it about this moment we’re living in, not just the Trump moment but a longer moment, that makes it possible finally to talk so seriously about slavery in public ways?” David Blight, Sterling Professor of American History at Yale and Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center, proposed this question at the start of the panel discussion “400 Years: African Americans, 1619-2019.” Commemorating the 400th anniversary of the purchase of “20 odd Africans” at Jamestown, Virginia in 1619, this public program was organized to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the African American Studies Department at Yale University.

Hosted by the First Church of Christ in New Haven—commonly known as Center Church on the Green—the panel discussion brought together the residents of New Haven, members of the Yale community, and a panel of three esteemed scholars of race and slavery, two of whom are alumni of Yale’s African American Studies graduate program. The event was organized by Yale University’s Department of African American Studies and was co-sponsored by the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at the MacMillan Center; the Afro-American Cultural Center; the Department of History; and the Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration.

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Edward Rugemer, Associate Professor of African American Studies & History at Yale, moderated the lively discussion of slavery, race, democracy, and their legacies today. Situating the discussion, Stephanie Smallwood, Associate Professor of History at the University of Washington, described the circuitous journey of the first “20 odd Africans” brought to Virginia. Originally departed from the port of Luanda, the capital of modern-day Angola, on the Portuguese slave ship, the San Juan Bautista, Smallwood emphasized that the journey of these Africans was not the typical triangular route. After the English privateer ship, the White Lion, attacked the San Juan Bautista – on its way to the Spanish-American colonial port of Veracruz – and stole 50-60 enslaved Africans on board, the White Lion and its crew went on to dock in Point Comfort, Virginia, where they sold “20 odd Africans” into enslavement. Prompted by Professor Rugemer, Professor Smallwood described what life might have been like for these captives and how these “20 odd Africans” likely ended up on a Portugese slave ship. The captive people, 20-30 of whom would eventually be sold in Virginia, were part of a cargo of 350 men, women, and children who were likely war captives. With succinct prose, Smallwood narrated how 350 Angolans “were dispersed across the Atlantic. Almost half to reside in death in the ocean depths, and the rest conscripted to the dispossession and colonization of American Indigenous lands.”

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Bringing the discussion to the present, the panelists considered some of the contemporary legacies of this early purchase of enslaved Africans and the laws later enacted. Seventeenth century Virginia, one of several English colonies, was impacted by the 1661 Barbados slave codes. These Barbadian slave codes set two precedents. First, that if a black person stuck a white person they could be killed, and second, the codes established two different judicial systems for blacks and whites. Professor Stevenson described how the precedents set by Barbadian slave codes continue to create inequality in our criminal justice system today. In today’s society people still think they can harm black people and get away with it, as long as they prove that they felt threatened. Hashtags like #BlackLivesMatter #SayHerName serve as reminder that black and brown people continually suffer unjust punishment and violence. Dr. Horn also informed the audience that presently in Jamestown, there are several monuments built in honor of the bravery and courage of the first white English settlers who “founded” Virginia and the U.S. However, praises for the contributions of Native Americans and African Americans remain shrouded and obscured. In the 400 year legacy of African enslavement in the U.S. and simultaneous displacement of Native Americans, addressing racial inequality remains one of our greatest contemporary challenges.

The event concluded with questions and comments from the audience. These questions underscored connections between the present moment and the past. Audience members called attention to threads between black gun ownership and enslaved resistance, policing and slave patrols, and a long history and continuing hyper-criminalization of black people. This was a moment of dynamic conversation between the panelists and the audience. While this particular moment and convening of scholars and the greater public had come to a close, the longer moment is sure to continue. This moment – one in which we talk about slavery in such public ways – is a focal point, built on the momentum of centuries of African Americans and Native Americans fighting for their rightful place in the history and present of American society.