RIT Professor Shares Lessons of the Abolitionist Movement with School Teachers

Richard Newman leads NEH-funded seminar and “We, the People” program in Philadelphia

A Rochester Institute of Technology professor will share his knowledge about the abolitionist movement with a group of 15 schoolteachers attending the National Endowment for the Humanities’ Summer Seminars and Institutes for School Teachers in Philadelphia this summer. The program brings together recognized scholars and school teachers for intensive study of various subjects.

Richard Newman will lead the four-week long seminar “The Abolitionist Movement: Fighting Against Slavery and Racial Injustice from the American Revolution to the Civil War” from July 6 to Aug. 1 at the Library Company of Philadelphia, the nation’s oldest lending library founded by Benjamin Franklin.

The NEH awarded Newman and the Library Company $90,000 to create and conduct the seminar on abolitionism. Newman led a successful version of the same NEH seminar in 2006. Newman’s seminar has been designated a “We, the People” program, which highlights themes and events deemed culturally significant in American history.

“The Abolitionist Movement is only one of 15 seminars for teachers offered nationally, so I hope it shines as a spotlight on the humanities at RIT, too,” says Newman, an associate professor of history.

Newman is the author of Freedom’s Prophet: Bishop Richard Allen, the AME Church, and the Black Founding Fathers (NYU Press 2008).

For more information, visit the Library Company.

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