Contact:
Margaret Anne Tockarshewsky, Executive Director, New Haven Museum
203-562-4183, ext. 120, matockarshewsky@newhavenmuseum.org
Julie Winkel, Media Specialist, New Haven Museum
203-815-0800, jwinkel@live.com
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Rethinking the Amistad Story:
Renowned Scholar Marcus Rediker Will Present Transformative Research
at New Haven Museum
New Haven, Conn. (February 7, 2025) – Internationally renowned historian, writer, filmmaker, playwright, and activist Dr. Marcus Rediker will present, “Rethinking the Amistad Story” at the New Haven Museum (NHM), on Thursday, April 3, 2025. Reception at 5:30 pm., program at 6 p.m. Registration is required for the free program and available here. The program will stream live on Facebook and later be shared on the NHM YouTube channel.
This is a rare local opportunity to meet the historian whose work transformed the understanding of the Amistad revolt and was central to the recent re-interpretation of the permanent New Haven Museum exhibit, “Amistad: Retold,” which opened in 2024. Rediker will discuss who the African rebels were, how they waged the uprising, and what the ordeal meant to them. He will explore the legacies of the Amistad Revolt as a powerful example of resistance to oppression that was, as he says, a “deeply human affair about real people, under real circumstances, making life-and-death decisions in real time.”
The local history of Amistad will also be discussed: what happened in the interactions between the Amistad Africans and the mostly white abolitionists in the New Haven jail; how the two groups together built a local and diverse social movement to support the legal battle; and how groups like the Amistad Committee subsequently kept the history of the event alive in popular memory.
Rediker first visited NHM in 2009 while conducting research for his book “The Amistad Rebellion: An Atlantic Odyssey of Slavery and Freedom.” He will address what drove him to research the “Amistad” in Sierra Leone, New Haven, and the subsequent presentation of his work in graphic novels, a documentary, and his recent play about the revolutionary abolitionist, “The Return of Benjamin Lay,” co-written with Naomi Wallace.
“The New Haven Museum hopes that participants will see how Rediker’s scholarship transformed historical understandings of the events of the Amistad, the history of slavery and abolition, and the local, national, and global dimensions of this story,” says Joanna Steinberg, NHM’s director of learning and engagement.
The program is organized by New Haven Museum with the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition and the Amistad Committee, with support by Connecticut Humanities.
About Marcus Rediker
Rediker is Distinguished Professor of Atlantic History at the University of Pittsburgh. His “histories from below” have won numerous awards and been translated into 19 languages worldwide. He is the author of 15 books, including the prize-winning “The Amistad Rebellion: An Atlantic Odyssey of Slavery and Freedom.” He produced a documentary film, “Ghosts of Amistad,” directed by Tony Buba. His most recent book, “Freedom Ship: The Uncharted History of Escaping Slavery by Sea,” will be published in May 2025. His play, “The Return of Benjamin Lay,” co-written with Naomi Wallace, is playing in Pittsburgh, New York, and Philadelphia during the first six months of 2025. He is currently working with artist David Lester to produce the forthcoming “Revolution by Sea: The Amistad Rebellion, A Graphic Novel.”
About Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition
The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies was founded in 1998 at Yale University. The Gilder Lehrman Center was the first institution in the world wholly devoted to scholarship, public education, and outreach about the global problem of slavery across all borders and all time. In a world that needs this work now more than ever, we invite you to join us in sustaining our mission to foster an improved academic and public understanding of the role of slavery, its destruction, and its legacies in the functioning of the modern world. For more information visit https://glc.yale.edu/
About The Amistad Committee Inc.
Established in 1988, The Amistad Committee, Inc. is a not-for-profit, tax-exempt organization. The original Amistad Committee formed to raise funds for the legal defense and return voyage of the subsequently liberated Africans who were involved in the Amistad Incident of 1839. Today, The Amistad Committee, Inc. is dedicated to the preservation and honoring of African and American history in Connecticut. The preservation of this history and its lessons are imperative and shall not be forgotten, diminished, erased or go unrecognized. “The work to be done is not to be completed in a day or a year; it will require a long time to remove the evils which slavery and habit have so deeply engraved upon the very foundation of everything.” Reverend Amos G. Beeman, Middletown, Sept. 6, 1862, letter to the editor of The Weekly Anglo-African newspaper.
About the New Haven Museum
The New Haven Museum has been collecting, preserving and interpreting the history and heritage of Greater New Haven since its inception as the New Haven Colony Historical Society in 1862. Located in downtown New Haven at 114 Whitney Avenue, the Museum brings more than 375 years of New Haven history to life through its collections, exhibitions, programs and outreach. As a Blue Star Museum, the New Haven Museum offers the nation’s active-duty military personnel and their families, including National Guard and Reserve, free admission all year. For more information visit https://www.newhavenmuseum.org or @NewHavenMuseum or call 203-562-4183.
