Abolition Histories: Tours and Collage Workshop

Delve into Philadelphia’s 18th and 19th century abolition movement through tours of Eden Cemetery and Laurel Hill East. On Saturday, September 28, learn about the lives of free African Americans and self-liberating abolitionists who now rest at Eden Cemetery, such as Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, William Still and Richard Allen, and other activists whose stories of resistance are undertold.

On Sunday, September 29, explore the lives of people buried at Laurel Hill East, including William Henry Furness, George Bryan, and Judge John Kane, whose stances and stories ranged from solidarity to lives of contradiction to anti-abolition violence.

Beyond individuals, these tours illuminate the broader societal landscape of the time as well as the site histories of Laurel Hill and Eden, which tell a story of racism in burial policies amongst cemeteries late into the 20th century and the African American response to a burial crisis.

Join us after the tours for a beginners’ collage workshop with Doriana Diaz, an artist, archivist, and memory worker, to explore images and ideologies of Black history and culture and collage as a form of resistance.