PAST EVENTS

NAHOF hosts various events throughout the year. See below for examples
of events we've held in previous years.

2026   2025   2024   2023  2022   2021   2020   2019   2018​

Past Events ~ 2026

August 1 ~  16th Annual Peterboro Emancipation Day

Gerrit Smith Estate NHL 
​5304 Oxbow Rd. Peterboro, NY 13134

Vanessa Johnson is a quilter, mixed media fiber artist, community educator, museum consultant, activist, writer, playwright, and actor. Ms. Johnson is the Artist in Residence for the Matilda Joslyn Gage Center in Fayetteville, NY, and is a recipient of a “Creatives Rebuild NY” grant. Ms. Johnson is a Griot, a storyteller in the West African Tradition. Her "Tells" preserve the stories of Africa and the African Diaspora. Vanessa tells the voices of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, Abolitionism, Slavery, Jim Crow, the Civil Rights Movement, African American Women, and her own experience living in America. 

Professor Clemmie L. Harris earned his Ph.D. in American History, Africana Studies, Metropolitan Studies, and Public Affairs from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. His talk: “Revisiting the 1963 March on Washington For Jobs, Justice, and Freedom: a Brief Talk on the Need for a Third Reconstruction” will explore the roots of systemic racism back to the foundation of the United States, and how citizens can take action. 

Schedule

• Dawn - Dusk Self-guided tours of Gerrit Smith Estate
• 11:30 am - 2:00 pm Lunch available for purchase, Firehouse Food Truck, Oneida, NY 
• 1:30 pm Max Smith, Welcome and Overview of the Afternoon
• 1:45 pm Nell Ziegler, Smithfield Community Association and Gerrit Smith Estate Updates
• 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm Vanessa Johnson, Syracuse Artist and Underground Railroad Storyteller 
• 3:00 pm - 3:30 pm Break.
• 3:30 pm - 4:30 pm Clemmie Harris, Utica University, Revisiting the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs, Justice and Freedom: A Brief Talk on the Need for a Third Reconstruction 
• 4:30 pm - 4:45 pm Group photo, followed by Procession to the Peterboro Cemetery

Co-sponsored by Gerrit Smith Estate NHL  and National Abolition Hall of Fame & Museum
​[email protected]

July 19 2pm ~ "Brothers in Spirit: Mutual Influence Between Frederick Douglass and  Gerrit Smith"

Norm Dann will present a program on his new book
​
2:00pm
Smithfield Community Center
​5255 Pleasant Valley Rd
​Peterboro, NY 13134

Book sales available

​Co-sponsored by Gerrit Smith Estate NHL 
and National Abolition Hall of Fame & Museum
​[email protected]

July 5​ ~ “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”
Oration of Frederick Douglass, July 5, 1852

2:00
Presentation: Owen Corpin and Dr. Norm Dann
Book sales available

Featuring performances by the Lingo Family singers
​
Peterboro Methodist Church
5240 Pleasant Valley Road, Peterboro NY 13134
​
Co-sponsored by Gerrit Smith Estate NHL 
and National Abolition Hall of Fame & Museum

June 19 ~  A New History of Abolition and Emancipation
Presentation by author Manisha Sinha Commemorating Juneteenth

FREE and open to the public
​
Pre-registration suggested. Click here to register, or click QR Code below.
Book sales by Colgate Bookstore on site and author signing is available after the talk.

7:00 pm
​Catherine Cummings Theater
16 Lincklaen St, Cazenovia, NY 13035

​June 16 ~  Singing a Journey of Freedom:
​Songs of Slavery and Emancipation Concert

Experience Songs of Slavery and Emancipation performed by Dr. Kathy Bullock,
Mat Callahan, Yvonne Moore and the Berea Singers, bringing history into the present.

​FREE and open to the public. Pre-registration suggested. Click here to register for this free event, or use the QR Code below.

Pre-registration suggested.
Please complete this form to reserve your place and confirm your support.

Please consider bringing a non-perishable food item donation for the Hope Chapel Food Program.

NAHOF is excited to bring this performance group to Hope Chapel in Utica, NY. 
Singing a Journey of Freedom: Songs of Slavery and Emancipation Tour is a multi-state concert tour and musical pilgrimage retracing the paths of the Underground Railroad through performance, scholarship, and song. Led by Dr. Kathy Bullock, the choir performs songs composed and sung by enslaved people and abolitionists—works long buried by history and now being restored to public consciousness through the “Songs of Slavery and Emancipation” Project founded by Mat Callahan.
This performance group is running a concert tour from June 12–22, 2026, traveling through six states and one country as part of America’s 250th anniversary, inviting audiences to reexamine the nation’s founding ideals through the authentic voices of those who fought for freedom.
The project brings together cultural and historical partners across the United States and Canada, including The John Brown Project and John Brown Lives!, along with Underground Railroad and abolitionist heritage sites throughout the tour route.
​

7:00 pm
Hope Chapel A.M.E. Zion Church​
751 South St, Utica, NY 13501

February 1-28, 2026 Black History Matters
Abolition

​Welcome to the sixth year of Black History Matters. Videos will be released two per week throughout the month of February on the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum YouTube channel,  www.youtube.com/@AbolitionHallofFame, and can also be accessed through the NAHOF website along with a listing of titles and dates, and links to videos from prior years. The Black History Matters series was founded in conjunction with the Upstate Institute at Colgate University.

 Schedule
Feb. 1 Introduction to Black History Matters 2026
Feb. 2 The Birth of Abolition: An Overview of the Abolition Movement in the U.S.
Feb. 6 Curse of Ham: Abolition and the Role of Religion
Feb. 9 Abolitionists and the End of Slavery in New York State
Feb. 13 Roads to Freedom: The People Who Made the Underground Railroad
Feb. 16 Abolition Beyond America: Global Movements in the 18th and 19th Century
Feb. 20 Women and the Battle to End Slavery
Feb. 23 The Afterlives of Slavery: Prisons, Policing, and Punitive Systems Beyond Abolition
Feb. 27 "Come to Peterboro: Lodestar for Freedom!"
Feb. 28 Conclusion

This and all of the BLM series are available now on the NAHOF YOUTUBE CHANNEL

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