WPCC Hosts Black History Month Event

In honor of February as Black History Month, Western Piedmont Community College will host Durham-based researcher Laurel C. Sneed’s lecture titled “Beyond 12 Years a Slave: The Influential Slave Narratives of Tar Heels Moses Roper, Harriet Jacobs, and William H. Singleton.” on Thursday, February 25 at 7:00 p.m. in Leviton auditorium in Moore Hall on the College campus at 1001 Burkemont Avenue. This free presentation is open to the public and made possible by WPCC’s Global Education Team.

Sneed, who is a history educator, will share the stories of three courageous African American North Carolinians who escaped from slavery to freedom and wrote their own narratives. The purpose of slave narratives was to change the hearts of readers so that they would support the anti-slavery cause, so these narratives were often dismissed and discredited as “anti-slavery propaganda”. Snead will share her research into the veracity of these and other narratives. She will also explore the book 12 Years a Slave by Solomon Northup, which is now an acclaimed movie, comparing his experiences to those of his Tar Heel counterparts.

Sneed, who is also a media producer and film maker, led the 1995 research effort that resulted in the discovery of the origins and parentage of Thomas Day, a free African American furniture designer and cabinetmaker from Caswell County, North Carolina. Since that time she has produced an array of materials and media concerning Day’s life and works. Sneed has served as director of the Crafting Freedom teacher workshops, through which over 400 teachers have come to North Carolina to study African American artisans, abolitionists, and entrepreneurs. She travels the United States presenting on a variety of historical topics and is a North Carolina Humanities Council Road Scholar.