The Promised Land Project
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ABSTRACT: The Promised Land Project (PLP) is a million dollars 5-year (2007-12) Community-University Research Alliance (CURA) focusing on 'historical amnesia' vis-à-vis the contribution of 19th-century black pioneers’ in Chatham, Chatham Townships and Dawn settlements, and the role this multicultural group of blacks, whites, and Natives played to end slavery and to fight for Civil Rights in Canada, the United States and abroad. INTRODUCTION: When he travelled across Canada West (the modern day Province of Ontario) in the summer of 1854, the black abolitionist Frederick Douglass saw what few people today have noticed: the political, ideological and economic importance of black pioneers. "They are levelling the forest," wrote Douglass, "clearing the land, converting the wilderness into fertile fields and causing the very earth to rejoice in their presence." This region, often referred to as the Promised Land or the Color's Man Paris by those seeking their freedom, became what was described by the black abolitionist Samuel Ringgold Ward as the "great moral lighthouse on the North American continent." It drew people of diverse social, cultural, and economic backgrounds, all of whose cultural knowledge, education and skills had a profound effect on the development of the region and on the creation of what for a time were extraordinary multicultural communities. Nevertheless, Grand narratives of Canadian history refers to the Promised Land localities, merely as the final stop on the Underground Railroad. This narrow "escape from slavery" narrative does not explore what happened once so-called fugitives had found their freedom, nor the experience of blacks in the Promised Land Communities. Though the communities themselves were small, their experience and influence stretched across Canada and to the farthest reaches of the Atlantic world. It is this vital centre of culture and justice that drew interracial support and forged transgeographical links of freedom between Canada, the United States and United Kingdom that this research project would like to integrate in to the Canadian grand narratives. The Promised Land Project is a collective effort of an interdisciplinary and international group of researchers. Boulou Ebanda de B'béri (Communication and Media, University of Ottawa), Marie Carter (Community Historian, Dresden Community Development Association) Handel Kashope Wright (Centre for Culture, Identity and Education, University of British Columbia), Nina Reid-Maroney (History, Huron University College) |
The Freedom Exerience Young Writers Competition Call for Paper: PLP Symposium 2010 - University of Windsor (.PDF) Audio and visual materials from the PLP's Team What is the Promised Land Project? What is the Community University Research Alliance
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