Every year, distinguished Brown scholars are nominated for Research Achievement Awards by their colleagues for conducting exceptional and transformative research. Amongst the 2025 selection is Manning Assistant Professor of American Studies and Simmons Center Fellow Elena Shih.

In Slavery’s Wake: Making Black Freedom in the World explores the history and enduring impact of the global slave trade through an understudied lens: the work of enslaved people and their descendants to build resilience and community through art, rebellion, spirituality and politics.

As a curatorial fellow for the Brown Arts Institute, Simmons Center Public Humanities Graduate Student Christina Young ’26 A.M. provided comprehensive support for Elysee Barakett's poignant installation ‘Presence of Absence’ from conceptualization to execution. Young collaborated closely with Barakett on both the workshop and installation components, coordinating with BAI's marketing team to create promotional material, securing exhibition space in the Lindemann Performing Arts Center, and facilitating installation. Her behind-the-scenes work helped to bring Barakett's deeply personal exploration of loss and memory to the Brown community through this collaborative, 55-foot mural installation. 

Historians at Brown University and Tribal members from across New England are launching a project they hope will bring awareness to the historic enslavement of Indigenous people in North America.

What does “reparatory justice” mean, and how is it different from “reparations?” These are some of the questions explored in this CBH Talk by Laura Trevelyan, who in 2016 learned that her ancestors were absentee owners of 1000 enslaved Africans, and Arley Gill, Chair of the Grenada National Reparations Committee, in conversation with Simmons Center Director Anthony Bogues.

The First Unitarian Church of Providence is confronting its history of benefiting from the slave trade through its new exhibit, “Owning History.” Traci Picard, Simmons Center Walking Tour guide and author of A Church in a Triangle: Race, Religion & Power in a Rhode Island Congregation 1720-1850 has led research to uncover these connections.

The Imagined New (or, What Happens When History is a Catastrophe?) – Volume III at The Africa Institute gathered artists, scholars, and students to explore war, grief, and hope. Presented with VIAD and the Ruth J. Simmons Center, the program combined lectures, performances, and conversations to examine how violence shapes our world—and how alternative futures might be imagined.

In Slavery’s Wake: Making Black Freedom in the World at the National Museum of African American History and Culture explores the global legacies of slavery, colonialism, and racial capitalism, and the enduring struggles for Black freedom. Through powerful storytelling, historical artifacts, and interactive displays, the exhibition foregrounds resistance—from shipboard rebellions to modern movements. Created in collaboration with the Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice, it underscores the importance of telling unvarnished histories at a time when such truths are increasingly under political threat.

'In Slavery’s Wake: Making Black Freedom in the World' at the National Museum of African American History and Culture explores the legacy of slavery and the ongoing struggle for freedom. Through artifacts, art, and immersive installations, the exhibition highlights both the horrors of enslavement and the resistance movements that followed. Created in collaboration with the Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice, it brings together global research to showcase the history of Black liberation across continents.

Prof. Brittany Friedman’s book explores the nature of carceral violence and its impact on marginalized communities. The event was moderated by Simmons Center Research Cluster Faculty Fellow Prof. Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve.

The event was part of a series hosted by the Mass Incarceration and Punishment in America Research Cluster and sponsored by the Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice.

When the American university took shape in the decades after the Civil War, slavery was an important subject of research almost from the start. But what does it mean to study slavery through historical records with inescapable biases? What counts as evidence, and who has the authority to make those determinations?

As many universities have begun to examine their involvement in slavery, Brown University's 2006 Slavery and Justice Report has served as a model for these studies which have now become a regular feature of the academic landscape.

Join WETA Arts host Felicia Curry as she explores "In Slavery’s Wake: Making Black Freedom in the World," a groundbreaking new exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. This powerful exhibit explores the lasting impact of slavery and the ways in which Black communities around the world have fought for freedom, resilience, and self-determination. Organized by the Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice at Brown University and the National Museum of African American History and Culture’s Center for the Study of Global Slavery, “In Slavery’s Wake: Making Black Freedom in the World” grew out of a decade-long collaboration between international curators, scholars and community members who were committed to sharing stories of slavery and colonialism in public spaces.

In December 2024, In Slavery’s Wake was unveiled as a new Smithsonian Institution exhibition at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington. In Slavery’s Wake, a global curatorial project which brings together over 100 artifacts, 250 images, and ten interactive presentations and films, is led by the Washington, D.C. museum and Brown University’s Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice.

In Slavery’s Wake will now make its way to museums on four continents through 2028. It is the largest traveling exhibition that the museum has undertaken, and each of the countries featured in the exhibition has a historical connection to slavery and colonialism.

Simmons Center Director Prof. Anthony Bogues spoke on a panel at Politics and Prose in Washington, D.C. about the recently-edited volume "In Slavery’s Wake." Prof. Bogues was joined by other editors of the volume, Dr. Paul Gardullo, a historian and curator at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) and director of its Center for the Study of Global Slavery; and Johanna Obenda, A.M. ’19, a curatorial specialist at NMAAHC who explores stories of the varied African diasporic experience through the lens of art, history, and culture.

This powerful collection of essays, brought to life with more than 150 illustrations, investigates the intertwined legacies of slavery, freedom, and capitalism. The publication is a companion to the exhibition "In Slavery’s Wake: Making Black Freedom in the World," on view at NMAAHC, and the documentary film, "Unfinished Conversations." All three projects came out of a set of conversations that began at Brown University in 2014 during a conference convened by the Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice.

At Brown, Braun cofounded the program in science, technology, and society, and at the time of her retirement last year she was coleading the race, medicine, and social justice research cluster at the Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice.

On this episode of The Photo Detective, I’m joined by Seth Rockman, author of Plantation Goods: A Material History of American Slavery. Seth’s groundbreaking research uncovers the economic and material ties that connected New England industries to the Southern plantation economy in the 19th century. From the labor of Rhode Island seamstresses to the cotton fields of Mississippi, his work reveals the intricate networks of production and exploitation that defined this era. Join us as we explore the stories of everyday objects and the lives they shaped across America’s divided landscape.

Seth Rockman is an associate professor of history at Brown University and serves on the faculty advisory board of Brown University’s Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice.

“In Slavery’s Wake,” a new exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, deals in huge themes and vast numbers. Over four centuries, an estimated 12 million Africans were transported across the ocean on more than 36,000 voyages, an epochal forced migration that reshaped societies on both sides of the Atlantic.

The seeds of the exhibition were planted in 2014, when a group of international curators met at Brown’s Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Race and Justice, which Prof. Anthony Bogues leads.

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture unveiled “In Slavery’s Wake: Making Black Freedom in the World”—its first international touring exhibition—Dec. 13. Through powerful forms of artistic expressions, such as quilting, music and ironwork, the exhibition reveals healing traditions rooted in the resilience of enslaved people.

Featuring more than 190 artifacts, 250 images, interactive stations and newly commissioned artworks, “In Slavery’s Wake” offers a transformative space to honor these legacies of strength and creativity. More information is available at nmaahc.si.edu/InSlaverysWake. The exhibition is open through June 8, 2025, in the museum’s Bank of America Special Exhibitions Gallery.

The exhibition delves into key questions about freedom and its expressions across six sections. Organized by the National Museum of African American History and Culture’s Center for the Study of Global Slavery and the Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice at Brown University, “In Slavery’s Wake: Making Black Freedom in the World” grew out of a decade-long collaboration between international curators, scholars and community members who were committed to sharing stories of slavery and colonialism in public spaces. The collective worked across geographies, cultures and languages, connecting the past and the present.