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The 14th Annual Lemon Project Spring Symposium

March 22-23, 2024

Event Details

William & Mary, Office of the Provost
The Lemon Project: A Journey of Reconciliation
In-Person and Virtual Symposium
Event is free. All are welcome!

Taking Our Time: Healing Through Black History, Family, and Communities

This Williamsburg, Virginia, symposium will take place both in person at the William & Mary School of Education (301 Monticello Avenue) and virtually over Zoom. The Friday evening performance location will be in the Commonwealth Auditorium, Sadler Center (200 Stadium Drive), and Saturday evening’s event will be at Hearth: Memorial to the Enslaved (115 Jamestown Road).

View the program
Friday, March 22, 2024
Three column schedule with times, name of session and location in the columns

8:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.

Registration Check-In

William & Mary School of Education, Concourse

8:45 a.m. - 8:55 a.m.

Welcome by Robert Francis Engs Lemon Project Director Dr. Jody Allen

School of Education, Matoaka Woods

8:55 a.m. - 9:00 a.m.

Remarks by Wanjirũ G. Mbure, Ph.D., Associate Dean, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Arts & Sciences

Matoaka Woods

9:00 a.m. - 9:15 a.m.

Break

3 Concurrent Panels

9:15 a.m. - 10:30 a.m.

Panel 1: Voices of Integration: Black Students from the Class of 1969

Matoaka Woods

Panel 2: Education Stories of Twentieth Century Virginia

School of Education, Dogwood

Panel 3: Preserving Legacies: Memorialization and Commemoration

School of Education, Holly

10:30 a.m. – 10:45 a.m.

Break

3 Concurrent Panels

10:45 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Panel 4: Designing for Racial Healing in Real Time: The Sewanee Praises Memorial Project

Matoaka Woods

Panel 5: The Guardian’s Legacies of Enslavement Programme: Atoning in the Present for Injustices of the Past (Virtual)

Dogwood

Panel 6: Resistance and Reclamation of Black Spaces

Holly

12:00 p.m. – 1:10 p.m.

Lunch  

Panel 7: From Brown to Green: Freedom of Choice and School Integration in Virginia; Firsthand Participants Tell Their Stories

Matoaka Woods

1:10 p.m. – 1:15 p.m.

Break

3 Concurrent Panels

1:15 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.

Panel 8: King Iron: Forging Identity Through the Untold Stories of the Iron Furnace Workers of Middle Tennessee (Hybrid)

Matoaka Woods

Panel 9: Reclamation through Data-Informed Methods for Studying Slavery and Beyond

Dogwood

Panel 10: Reparative Work and the East Marshall Street Well Project

Holly

2:30 p.m. – 2:45 p.m.

Break

3 Concurrent Panels

2:45 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.

Panel 11: Using Public History such as Markers and Statues to Heal Communities of Color

Matoaka Woods

Panel 12: Taking Up Space and Finding Joy in Life, Culture, and Art

Dogwood

Panel 13: Exploring Family Histories

Holly

4:00 p.m. – 4:15 p.m.

Break

3 Concurrent Panels

4:15 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.

Panel 14: Healing Ourselves: Black LGBTQ+ Community Making in the Eras of HIV/AIDS and COVID-19 A Panel Commemorating Johnny L. Baily, Ph.D

Matoaka Woods

Panel 15: Digital Archives, Communal Care, and Healing through Comics and Flowers

Dogwood

Panel 16: Good Ancestors, Silenced DNA, and Researching Our History

Holly

5:30 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.

Break

7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.

The Lemon Project with The African-American Historical Society of Newport News & the Hampton University Department of Music & Performing Arts presents "The Yard," Written by Iris Goode-Middleton

Reception to Follow in Atrium, Sponsored by W&M Department of Theater, Speech, & Dance

Commonwealth Auditorium, Sadler Center (200 Stadium Drive)

Saturday, March 23, 2024
Three column schedule with times, name of session and location in the columns

8:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.

Registration Check-In

School of Education, Concourse

8:55 a.m. - 9:00 a.m.

Welcome by Dr. Jody Allen

Introduction by Andre Taylor, Historian, Colonial Williamsburg

School of Education, Matoaka Woods

9:00 a.m. - 10:15 a.m.

"Healin de Black Famlee: A Gullah/Geechee Circle of Healing Session" Keynote by Queen QuetChieftess of the Gullah/Geechee Nation

 Matoaka Woods

10:15 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.

Book Signing by Queen Quet

Concourse
3 Concurrent Panels

10:30 a.m. - 11:45 a.m.

Panel 17: A School Name: The Identity, Impact, and Implications

Matoaka Woods

Panel 18: Facets of Public History: Graduate Student Experiences and the Lemon Project

School of Education, Dogwood

Panel 19: Racial Identity and Healing, Critical Conversations, and Family Histories

School of Education, Holly

11:45 a.m. -12:00 p.m.

Break

12:00 p.m. – 1:15 p.m.

Lunch

Panel 20: Mapping as Community Healing: Space, Place, and Legacy at the Williamsburg Bray School

Matoaka Woods 

1:15 p.m. -1:30 p.m.

Break

3 Concurrent Panels

1:30 p.m. – 2:45 p.m.

Panel 21: Tick-TOCK: Tell Your Story – Objective Imaging Advocacy – Carving Space for Healing- Keeping Sustainable Practices

Matoaka Woods

Panel 22: Silenced Voices in Interpreting Sites of Slavery (Hybrid)

Dogwood

Panel 23: Reconciliation through Conversations, History, and Communal Healing

Holly

2:45 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.

Break

3 Concurrent Panels

3:00 p.m. – 4:15 p.m.

Panel 24: Moved from the Land, Called to the Stand: Reservation Descendant Reflections on the Yorktown Navy Mine Depot Displacement

Matoaka Woods

Panel 25: Rekindling the Family Flame: A Family's Pursuit of Liberty from Virginia to Liberia (Hybrid)

Dogwood

Panel 26: Reassembling the Pieces: Restoration for Descendants of a Race Massacre (Virtual)

Holly

7:00 p.m.

Spoken Word Event in collaboration with The Black Poets Society

Hearth: Memorial to the Enslaved (115 Jamestown Road, Williamsburg, VA 23185)

(Parking is available behind the Admissions Building on Grigsby Drive.)

Register for the Lemon Project Symposium

Questions?

For questions about The Lemon Project Symposium, email Lemon Project Associate Director Sarah Thomas at [[w|lemon]].

Interested in Volunteering? 

View the volunteer slots, and sign up to volunteer at the Lemon Project Symposium! 

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