Welcome to the Witte Museum. Purchase your tickets online!
Are you an educator or student? You may be able to attend the full conference at no cost. Click here for the scholarship form!
Keynote Speaker: Annette Gordon-Reed
Juneteenth is America’s vital new holiday that marks the end of slavery, and its legacy continues to influence our understanding of freedom and our fight for racial justice today. Annette Gordon-Reed, MacArthur Genius and the first Black person to win the Pulitzer Prize for History, is one of the integral voices who brought Juneteenth into the national conversation.
Her New York Times bestselling book about this profound day—On Juneteenth—is a powerful, essential work of history that weaves together America’s past with personal memoir; it was named one of the best books of the year by the Washington Post, TIME and NPR. The New York Times calls Annette “one of the most important American historians of our time.” She first rose to prominence when she pushed for scholars and the public to take Black people’s versions of history seriously—no matter how inconvenient they may be. Today, she draws on her book to show us how we can learn from the past and keep striving for progress together.
About the Conference on Texas Ode to Juneteenth: Slavery in Texas
The 2024 Conference on Texas at the Witte Museum will reveal the foundational role of chattel slavery in the formation and growth of Texas. The conference will center on the lives of the enslaved people, especially as mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers. Every facet of the expanding Texas economy was impacted by slavery and enslaved labor. Enslaved people not only labored on cotton and sugar plantations, they also worked as artisans such as blacksmiths, seamstresses, and as enslaved cowboys.
In 1834, there were approximately 5,000 enslaved people in Mexican Texas. During the Republic of Texas, slavery increased so that by 1845, there were at least 30,000 enslaved women, men and children in the new state of Texas. When Texas voted to join the Confederacy in 1861, the enslaved population was 182,566 people, the fastest growing demographic in Texas. The economy of Texas was so dependent upon slavery that not until June 19, 1865, now celebrated as Juneteenth, were enslaved people freed from bondage in Texas, two years after Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
Through new scholarship, the Conference will broaden the understanding of the ongoing legacies from slavery which continue to impact African Americans in Texas.
For more information or to purchase tickets or to inquire about scholarships for the event, please call 210.357.1888 or email MichelleEveridge@WitteMuseum.org.
Breakfast
Coffee and Pastries
8 – 8:50 a.m.
Mays Family Center
Generously supported by Wells Fargo Advisors
Welcome
9 – 9:30 a.m.
Mays Family Center
Plenary Session
9:30 – 10:20 a.m.
Mays Family Center
“Endurin’ de Freedom War:” Slavery and Emancipation in Texas—A Complex History
Dr. Daina Ramey Berry
Michael Douglas Dean of Humanities & Fine Arts, Professor of History, UC Santa Barbara
Concurrent Session 1
Land, Law and Chattel Slavery
10:30 – 11:20 a.m.
Dawson Family Hall – Facilitator: Dr. Anene Ejikeme
Memorial Auditorium – Facilitator: Pharaoh Clark
Concurrent Session 2
Enslaved Experience from Colonial New Spain to the Civil War
11:30 a.m. – 12:20 p.m.
Dawson Family Hall – Facilitator: Ronald W. Davis, II
Memorial Auditorium – Facilitator: Mary Margaret McAllen
Lunch Session
Reflecting on Slavery through Art
12:30 – 2:20 p.m.
Mays Family Center
Aaronetta Pierce
Trustee, Witte Museum
Dr. Kimberlyn Montford
Associate Professor of Music, Trinity University
Vincent Hardy
Chair of Fine Arts & Kinesiology, St. Philips College
Generously supported by the William Knox Holt Foundation
Session 3
2:30 – 3:20 p.m.
Dawson Family Hall – Facilitator: Dr. Nakia Parker
We Refuse: A Force History of Black Resistance
Dr. Kellie Carter Jackson
Michael and Denise Kellen ’68 Associate Professor in the Department of Africana Studies, Wellesley College
Concurrent Session 4
Building Communities: Plantation Life and Life after Juneteenth
3:30 – 4:20 p.m.
Generously supported by Jill and George Vassar
Dawson Family Hall – Facilitator: Dr. Michelle Cuellar Everidge
Memorial Auditorium – Facilitator: Deborah Omowale Jarmon
Reception and Tour
4:30 – 5:50 p.m.
Ewing Halsell Hall
Guided tour of Black Cowboys: An American Story
Ronald W. Davis, II
Generously supported by Bank of America
Evening Keynote
6 – 7:30 p.m.
Mays Family Center
On Juneteenth: The Essential Story of “Freedom Day” and Its Importance to American History
Annette Gordon-Reed
Carl M. Loeb University Professor, Harvard University
All Events in Dawson Family Hall
Breakfast
Coffee and Breakfast Tacos
8 – 8:50 a.m.
Generously supported by Wells Fargo Advisors
Welcome
9 – 9:15 a.m.
Aaronetta Pierce
Trustee, Witte Museum
Session 1
9:15 – 10:05 a.m.
Escaping Slavery’s Capitalism: How Enslaved African Americans’ Attempts to Free Themselves Challenge American Stories About Citizenship, Policing and Political Economy
Dr. Edward E. Baptist
Professor of History, Cornell University
Session 2
10:15 – 11:05 a.m.
Slavery in America: Legacy of Poor Health and Violence in Black Communities
Dr. Keisha S. Ray
Associate Professor and John P. McGovern, MD Professorship of Oslerian Medicine at the McGovern Center for Humanities & Ethics at UT Health Houston
What Have We Learned?
11:15 – 11:50 a.m.
The Conference on Slavery in Texas: A Synthesis
Dr. Michelle Cuellar Everidge
Deputy Director & Chief Operating Officer, Witte Museum
Lunch Session
Noon – 1:50 p.m.
Performance by The Haus of Glitter
Where Do We Go From Here?
2:00 – 4:00 p.m.
Community Conversations led by the team from SAAACAM
Lifting Us Up
4 p.m.
Musical Performance
Oscar Ford
Pianist, Minister of Music Emeritus, Antioch Missionary Baptist Church
Earl Jackson
Director, Minister of Music, Antioch Missionary Baptist Church
The Conference on Texas is presented by H-E-B with generous support from Bank of America, the Smithsonian Institution’s Our Shared Future: Reckoning with Our Racial Past Initiative, Wells Fargo Advisors, William Knox Holt Foundation, Humanities Texas, the Smothers Foundation, Spurs Sports and Entertainment, Frost Bank, Jill and George Vassar, San Antonio Area Foundation and Jefferson Bank.
March 23-24, 2023
Dive into Texas’ wild and vivid lands, especially its people, their resilience and how they adapted to or impacted the ever-developing Texas.
Resources:
May 16-17, 2022
A global conversation about Texas, especially people’s relationships with the land, in the past, present and future.
Resources:
May 13-14, 2021
This conference focuses on the transition from Tejas to Texas—the state we live in today.
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© 2023 The Witte Museum, San Antonio, Texas
The Witte Museum
Nature, Science & Culture
3801 Broadway
San Antonio, Texas 78209
Phone: 210.357.1900
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