Press Release

For Immediate Release

May 17, 2024 (Portsmouth, VA) In recognition of the May 21st

– 23rd 1861 Contraband Escape,

Abolitionists' Museum a play written and directed by Sheri Bailey will be presented by the National Juneteenth

Observance Foundation at the White House on the Ellipse Stage at 3pm, Wednesday, June 19th

. Under the

umbrella of Ms. Bailey’s production company SB, Ink, a film adaptation of Abolitionists’ Museum with

producer and actor Michael LeMelle is forthcoming. Using the following tools JuneteenthVA seeks to educate

and entertain without shame or blame. Thank you for giving your valued time to review this material.

Abolitionists' Museum

The play features Harriet Tubman, Harriet Beecher-Stowe, Sojourner Truth, Nat Turner, John Brown, Frederick

Douglass, David Walker, and Abraham Lincoln. These eight are wax figures living in a museum where the

curator has recently hung a Confederate flag. Using their actual words from speeches and writings mixed with

contemporary references, the characters debate and then vote on whether to burn the rebel cloth. In the post-

show the audience is asked, "Would you vote yes or no to burn the Confederate flag?"

Fort Monroe Think Tank Considers Race and the Development of Anti-Racist Policies

Fort Monroe's significance in American history cannot be overstated. This is where in the latter part of August

1619, "20 and odd" kidnapped Angolan men and women came to the end of a forced ocean journey. Some of

this group found themselves in Jamestown as indentured servants who learned skills and ultimately earned their

freedom. Think of them as the ancestors of today's Black middle-class.

Contraband Escape: The Greatest Moment in American History

Fast forward 242 years when three enslaved men Shepard Mallory, Frank Baker and James Townsend escaped

from their owner in Norfolk. They found their way to the Union camp in Hampton and made their freedom

appeal. On May 23, 1861, Union General Benjamin Franklin Butler having refused to return the men to their

former owner put Baker, Mallory and Townsend on the federal payroll which put them on the path to

citizenship. This is the moment chattel slavery first begin to end in America. Throngs and scores of people,

young and old, man and woman, boys and girls streamed into "Freedom Fortress Monroe." In May 2020

noted Civil War historian Edward Ayers responded with the following to JuneteenthVA's request for support of

our “important work” to build a 21st century Fort Monroe-Contraband Camp-Think Tank:

The village that grew up and around Fort Monroe was the product

of the hands and hearts of Black Virginians, people who built new

lives from virtually nothing. The story of the ways that enslaved

people made themselves free, in midst of the Civil War, is one

of the most inspiring episodes in American history, testifying to

the ways that people held in slavery refused to let the bondage

define them. The ways that family, faith, and sheer bravery

sustained them. By helping us to imagine what that last

landscape looked and felt like, to remember the faces and

names of people who pushed into the unknown, to recall the

women and men and children who made new lives for themselves

in the first chance at freedom, the Contraband Village project can

help us confront the challenges of our own crisis. The end of

slavery was the greatest event in the history of the United States

and the contraband story of Fort Monroe played a key role in that

event. We need to do all that we can to remember it.

Edward L. Ayers

Tucker-Boatwright Professor of the Humanities

President Emeritus

University of Richmond

War Against Slavery aka W.A.S. aka WAS: 1831-1877

The War Against Slavery started in 1831 with the Nat Turner Insurrection and "ended" in 1877 with the

withdrawal of Federal troops from the South. This action encouraged the rapid rise of the KKK and Jim Crow.

Other significant events on the WAS timeline include the 1857 Dred Scott U.S. Supreme Court ruling that

essentially said, "Black lives don't matter." The year 1859 brought abolitionist’s John Brown's raid on Harper's

Ferry and that was the spark that ignited the Civil War less than six months later on April 14, 1860, at Fort

Sumter, SC. Less than six weeks later, the Contraband 3 made their bid for freedom and on May 23rd Baker,

Townsend and Mallory were on the path to citizenship. Actions such as theirs tell the stories of the War Against

Slavery aka WAS.

Juneteenth Declaration of Independence

It is 1776 in the 21st century. You, the people are invited to participate in the updating of this document that is

of the people, for the people and by the people.

The Past

Two thousand years ago nobody, save family and the apostles, knew who Jesus was. It was neither a good nor

bad Friday. It was just a regular day when they died on the cross. Then, three days later, they rose from the dead

and word begin to spread that a Jew, a child of God, died on the cross for all of humanities’ sins, for all of

eternity. Christianity went on to be used by the American slaveholders to teach their enslaved people that it was

God’s will that their suffering on earth be rewarded in death with a homecoming celebration into heaven.

The Present

This thought from Ed Ayers’ letter bears repeating.

“

…the Contraband Village project can help us confront the

challenges of our own crisis.” Like the Civil War Trail highway markers, Underground Railroad routes need to

be similarly mapped and identified. JuneteenthVA’s programming challenges stereotypes, engages with

difficult history, and elicits realistic acknowledgement of past harms without shame or blame.

The Future

For over 25 years JuneteenthVA in partnership with various military, educational, municipal, arts, science,

social services, non-profits, small businesses, and corporate entities has created a tool that works. And maybe

someone somewhere else is doing something similar, but only our Tidewater-Hampton Roads region can speak

to America’s birth and first breath.

Historic Diamond: Jamestown, Colonial Williamsburg, Yorktown, and Freedom Fortress Monroe

1607-1877

Contraband Camp

By the war’s end in 1865 over 10,000 people lived at the fort and the surrounding Phoebus neighborhood. In

2024 the region is facing a lack of housing for Navy sailors which is forcing them to sleep in their cars. In the

immediate, M.A.S.H. housing can be setup as plans are drawn to develop a working, functional community that

will house the Fort Monroe think tank and a range of permanent and temporary guests and residents.

Sheri Bailey CEO

.