Latest news with #heritage
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Politics
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Recognizing the Underground Railroad
May 31—Two sites in Ironton to be dedicated on Wednesday The Appalachian Freedom Heritage Tourism Initiative will be dedicating two of Ironton's historic sites in Ironton that were part of the Underground Railroad. On Wednesday at 10 a.m., a marker will be put on the Campbell House, which was the residence of John and Elizabeth Campbell and served as a station for Underground Railroad operations in Lawrence County. The Campbells worked with other local abolitionists to assist freedom Then at 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, they will mark Ironton African Methodist Church in Ironton. Now knowns as Quinn Chapel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, it was founded by Retta and Gabe N. Johnson. The couple helped freedom seekers escape through the Hanging Rock Iron District, a region encompassing the Tri-State area of Ohio, Kentucky and what was formerly part of the state of Virginia and is now part of West Virginia. "It is exciting to see this federal investment in the historical assets we have in the Tri-State region. Our research is recovering important lost chapters of local history that will transform our understanding of the past and help draw interest and visitors to the region," said Dr. Andrew Feight, Director of Research and Outreach for the Appalachian Freedom Heritage Tourism Initiative. "This is a history for which we all can be proud as Americans and it's an honor and a humbling experience for me to play my part in the endeavor." Marty Conley, LEDC/Tourism director of Lawrence County, said they are honored that the Appalachian Heritage Freedom Tourism Initiative has helped make it possible for the National Park Service to recognize these Underground Railroad sites. "This is a meaningful step in preserving these stories, and we look forward to safeguarding even more local history for future generations," he said. The Appalachian Freedom Heritage Tourism Initiative recently reached a significant milestone in its mission to document the region's Underground Railroad history, with an additional eight verified sites now officially listed on the National Park Service's (NPS) National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. Supported by an Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) POWER Grant awarded to the Lawrence Economic Development Corp. (LEDC), this nine-county, Tri-State project spans the tristate region of Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia. When completed, the Appalachian Freedom Heritage Tour will consist of 27 verified Network to Freedom sites. The initiative aims to preserve historically significant locations and promote economic development through cultural tourism in the Appalachian region. The Network to Freedom program, created by Congress in 1998, highlights more than 800 places and programs. The Network verifies that each one is a true story about the men, women and children who freed themselves or were helped by others to escape enslavement. Some succeeded and others, tragically, failed. The Network to Freedom program has listings in 41 states, Washington, D.C., the U.S. Virgin Islands and Canada. For more information on the Appalachian Freedom Heritage Tourism Initiative, and for additional image requests, visit or contact Conley at marty@ or Feight at afeight@ or Dr. Cicero Fain III at fainc@ You Might Like News Ashland woman killed in UTV accident News Council to fill Arthur seat News A tradition of honor (WITH GALLERY) News Former local meteorologist arrested
Times
5 hours ago
- Health
- Times
My grandfather wasn't who I thought — now I'm retracing his footsteps
Fordington in Dorchester is little changed since local Thomas Hardy hymned the 'intra-mural squeeze' of its passageways and thatched cottages with their eaves 'thrust against the church tower'. Today the centre of the action in this bucolic spot is Bean on the Green, a vintage-styled café where tables spill onto the slopes of the green and a board advertises Dorset Pilates, oat lattes and afternoon teas. Apart from that, it's the same sleepy scene a man named Bernard Sheppard strolled through in December 1944, before boarding a steam train for Penzance and a fateful tryst with my grandmother Virginia. Five million Britons have taken a DNA heritage test since 23andMe launched the first genetic home-testing kits in the UK in 2014. Many of these curious souls have been rewarded with a genealogical shock, in the form of a'non-paternity event', or NPE. The International Society of Genetic Genealogy estimates that 1-2 per cent of contemporary Britons have an unexpected father, with these numbers rising to 10 per cent at grandfather level. The travel companies Ancestral Footsteps, run by the former BBC Who Do You Think You Are? genealogist Sue Hills; Ireland's Roots Revealed; and Kensington Tours (which teams up with genealogists from Ancestry Pro on its Personal Heritage Journey packages) have crowded into the market, using clients' DNA results to offer tailored 'roots tours'. These tours explore clients' ancestors' lives by, for example, taking them for a pint at a forebear's local boozer; visiting the cemeteries she or he is buried in; or peering at homes they inhabited. These can be self-guided, or with a professional genealogist in tow. My own DNA detective journey began in 2019, at the age of 42, whenI took a DNA heritage test through Ancestry DNA (spitting into a vial and posting it off). Soon after receiving my results, I was contacted by Kevin, a sixtysomething from Texas who ventured that I might be his close genetic relative. A second surprise email arrived, this time from Beverly, a 69-year-old based in knew she had been adopted in Dorchester in 1955 and that I was her close relative; either her first cousin or half-niece. 'I wonder if the family knows about me …' she wrote, searchingly. Thus began a quest that led to the discovery my father's father was not, as I'd believed, a mild-mannered Brummie butcher named Sidney (I grew up in Birmingham), but a brewery worker from Dorset who had fathered at least ten children in his colourful life. These children included my dad, Ken, and Beverly, who was adopted. After we followed the DNA trail to its only plausible conclusion, Kevin, Bernard's nephew, wrote: 'Bernard was charming, but I'm afraid was a known rogue.' I planned my trip from my home in Lewes, East Sussex, to Bernard's home town, Dorchester, with the help of genealogists from AncestryPro, professional genealogy arm. As far as surprise ancestral homes go, I had struck lucky. The Dorset market town retains many of the features of Bernard's day, from the grassy adumbrations of the old Roman amphitheatre at Maumbury Rings, where I enjoyed a spectral sunrise jog, to the High Street's lofty Georgian townhouses (many still going by their Victorian names), and the red-brick muscularity of the Eldridge Pope brewery, where census records located Bernard working as a cashier totting up the sales of its 'celebrated strong ales' in 1939. These days the site is a glossy Dorchester restaurant and shopping district, Brewery Square, and the old 'bonded store' where Bernard dispatched brews on the train to London has been reborn as an industrial-chic tapas and cocktail joint. The genealogist Simon Pearce says the UK makes for rich rewards for DNA sleuths. 'There's plenty left to see: cemeteries, churches your ancestors attended, former homes that are still standing.' Pearce has a special interest in family history during the wars and says that as far as DNA big reveals go, my story is run-of-the-mill. 'The Second World War saw young people called up and sent across the country and to the other side of the world,' he says. 'It also brought well-dressed American and Canadian servicemen to the UK at the same time as life was unpredictable and people, rightly, feared they might die tomorrow.' Little wonder, then, that shock parenting events, as well as divorces, spiked in the 1940s. • Read our full guide to Dorset I'm staying at the King's Arms, a Georgian coaching inn that was recently renovated by the boutique hotel group Stay Original. The group's managing director, Rob Greacen, gives me a tour of the hotel's unearthed original features: the 17th-century posts that led to the inn's stables, a 16th-century inner room and a 1950 restaurant menu that was discovered tucked in a wall cavity and is now framed in the hotel's smart, American-style bar. The menu advertises steamed chicken with mushroom sauce and boiled potatoes with a choice of fruit jelly or sprats on toast for dessert, which Greacen agrees doesn't sound like the sort of fare to put lead in a philanderer's pencil. These days the King's Arms is a more toothsome proposition, with gourmet à la carte breakfasts including local smoked trout omelette Arnold Bennett and, in its smarter double rooms, freestanding bathtubs commanding the old Georgian bay windows. The next morning I stroll around Victorian Borough Gardens, where, in Bernard's day, brass bands would have blasted out rousing tunes from an ornate painted bandstand. Then I head on to the Shire Hall Museum, a preserved Georgian courtroom and jail that's now a tribute to the lowly souls who passed through its notorious docks, from the Tolpuddle Martyrs to children imprisoned for infractions such as stealing vegetables. It stands as a timely reminder, not to romanticise the routinely hard-knock lives of those who went before us. • 19 of the best UK pubs with rooms Back in the King's Arms, a smoking room occupies the spot where wagon wheels and horses' hoofs would have clattered through the gates of this ancient wayfarers inn. I dine here on crispy Dorset coast fish, a dish Bernard might have recognised, although the wild garlic aïoli and samphire might have confused a 1940s lad (mains from £18). Time moves on, and lemon posset with pumpkin seed biscotti finds favour over fried sprats for pud. After a week on the DNA trail, I think I've cleared up the mystery of how Virginia and Bernard met, with local records showing Bernard's family link to generations of sailors who lived between Weymouth and Sennen Cove, a few miles from Virginia's native Pendeen. I'll never know the full truth about Bernard and Virginia's rendezvous, though I feel this mission has given me a fresh appreciation of our emotionally open — and gastronomically improved — modern times. I also have a sense of my secret grandfather's life from the houses, streets and pubs he passed through. Here's to you, Grandad, you old rogue. This article contains affiliate links, which can earn us revenue Sally Howard was a guest of Discover Dorchester ( and the King's Arms, which has room-only doubles from £150 a night ( Curated DNA heritage tours from Ancestry Pro and Kensington Tours start from £276 (
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
Trigger warning put on ancient Egyptian slave statues
The National Trust has put a trigger warning on a pair of ancient Egyptian slave statues. The statues, at Cliveden House in Buckinghamshire, depict two children clothed in gold, raising torches and standing on either side of a staircase. A report published by the Prosperity Institute revealed that a trigger warning has been placed next to them. A placard says the Trust is 'working to redisplay and reinterpret these statues' so that the 'appalling histories of slavery and the slave trade' can be recognised. It reads: 'Today, the depiction of black people in European sculpture causes upset and distress to many. We don't want to censor or deny the way colonial histories are woven into the fabric of our places. 'Cliveden, including these statues, is Grade I-listed, meaning it has been identified as nationally significant. So we're working to redisplay and reinterpret these statues in a way that acknowledges the appalling histories of slavery and the slave trade. 'We invite you to consider what they represent about British and global history.' Dr Radomir Tylecote, managing director of the Prosperity Institute, said the report exposes how the National Trust 'uses woke rhetoric while pursuing policies that patently reduce accessibility.' He added: 'Supporters of the Trust have defended its woke initiatives by claiming they make the organisation more accessible and inclusive.' The statues, also known as torcheres, were created in the 19th century by Val D'Osne, a leading French art foundry, after a model by the French visual artist Mathurin Moreau. They were bought by Hugh Grosvenor, the 1st Duke of Westminster, who lived at Cliveden from 1868 to 1893. They incorporate several stylistic motifs reflecting the fashions and cultural interests of the time. The figures are modelled as children, but their pose and function derive from a much older European decorative tradition known as the 'Blackamoor,' which was a European art style that depicted highly-stylised figures, often African males, in subservient or exoticised form. The term is now viewed as racist or culturally insensitive. A trigger warning was also added to the website of Trengwainton Garden, a National Trust property in Cornwall. The website discusses the history of Sir Rose Price, the owner of the property in 1814, whose wealth came from inherited sugar plantations in Jamaica. A box reads: 'Please be aware: The following web page discusses the legacy of colonialism at Trengwainton and historic slavery and includes references to histories that some people may find upsetting.' The Prosperity Institute report argues that in recent years the management of the Trust, which is regulated by the Charity Commission, has been neglecting its principal duty of restoring houses and instead focused on projects that 'do not fall within the charity's core remit'. It also claims the Trust has started to added labels to its properties highlighting links to slavery and colonialism 'without providing sufficient context or balance' in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. A National Trust spokesperson said: 'Everything we do is guided by our charitable purpose. 'Our new strategy is clear that we want to increase people's access to places of nature, beauty and history and looking after our shared national heritage will always be a crucial part of that.' Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
Elk Grove honors Jewish-American heritage and Andra Bucci
May is designated as Jewish-American Heritage Month throughout the country. As the month progresses, towns and legislatures honor many of those whose contributions make a difference. On May 28, the city of Elk Grove read its proclamation of Jewish-American Heritage Month.
Yahoo
11 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
How Haitian women-led nonprofit organizations are turning sisterhood into strategy
'Haitian heritage is a living force.' These Haitian women-led nonprofit organizations reclaim power, healing, and hope for Haiti. When folks talk about Haiti's revolution, names like Toussaint Louverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines get all the shine. But what about Sanité Bélair, who faced the firing squad with her head high? Or Cécile Fatiman, whose spiritual power helped ignite the revolution? Or Marie-Jeanne Lamartinière, who picked up a musket and defended Haiti's freedom like her life depended on it—because it did? These women weren't in the background. They were the backbone. Their spirit didn't disappear with the end of the revolution; it just shifted. Today, their legacy lives on—not just in textbooks, but in the actions of Haitian women who continue to organize, resist, and rebuild in the face of adversity. At the heart of this modern movement is a simple but revolutionary belief that 'Haitian women deserve space to thrive, not just survive.' That belief is the foundation of the Haitian Ladies Network (HLN), a growing global sisterhood birthed from shared values and an unshakeable commitment to heritage, healing, and collective progress. 'We want the world to see beyond crisis-driven headlines,' HLN told theGrio, 'and recognize Haiti for its depth, resilience, and brilliance.' They are not alone in that vision. Across borders and time zones, Haitian women are rising to challenge not just the narrative about Haiti, but the systems that have long excluded their voices and leadership from shaping its future. Organizations like HLN, the Haitian Women's Collective (HWC), and grassroots coalitions like Nègès Mawon and Marijan Ayiti prove that when Haitian women lead, communities heal, and nations transform. For Carine Jocely, the founder and director of HWC, it all started when she gathered a group of Haitian and Haitian-American women who were doing powerful work—building clinics, running grassroots organizations, supporting survivors, and holding down communities back home in Haiti. What started as an informal space to exchange ideas quickly revealed a deeper need: connection, visibility, and recognition for Haitian women who have always done the work, but rarely get the mic. 'I quickly realized the power and impact of their work and the need to formalize the network,' explained Jocely. '[HWC] is grounded in an unshakeable faith in the resilience of Haitian women and girls. We are committed to changing the narrative for Black women-led organizations in Haiti from one of fragility to one of strength and capacity.' This shift in narrative is something Haitian women across the globe have been fighting for—and building toward—for years. While mainstream media often tells one story about Haiti—one of chaos, instability, and crisis—Haitian women have been crafting another story—one rooted in legacy, resistance, community care, and vision. They're not just responding to Haiti's crises. They're reimagining what's possible for Haiti. Like HWC, HLN began as a gathering of like-minded women and has grown into one of the largest platforms for Haitian women worldwide. With a bold and beautifully simple goal to connect Haitian women across generations and geographies to celebrate heritage, share resources, and ignite a sense of collective power, the organization leans on five pillars: Wellness and Healing, Financial Well-Being, Voice and Influence, Bridging Haiti and its Diaspora, and Culture and Heritage. But most importantly, they offer belonging. Whether mentoring young professionals, supporting women entrepreneurs, or cultivating cultural pride, HLN is in the business of restoration—of dignity, identity, and the right to dream beyond disaster. 'Our mission is to shift the narrative from one of struggle to one of strength, beauty, and infinite possibility with Haitian women leading the way in telling that story,' HLN representatives added. Still, it's an uphill battle. Only 3% of global funding for Haiti goes directly to Haitian organizations. And with USAID freezing hundreds of millions of dollars in aid, a 2025 UN Women study warns that nearly half of women's organizations on the ground may shut down within six months. Despite this, Haitian women keep showing up. HWC supports frontline groups embedded in communities, offers burnout prevention and trauma-informed care, advocates for fair international policy that recognizes the expertise and leadership of Haitian women, and organizes virtual healing spaces for human rights defenders, understanding that rest is resistance, too. 'Women in general need spaces that applaud them for their work,' Jocely shared. 'The grassroots groups doing the work, day in and day out, are often not recognized, provided a seat at the decision-making table, or afforded large, impactful funding opportunities,' Jocely noted. And perhaps no group lives that ethos more than Nègès Mawon. This Haiti-based feminist collective has made a name for itself by championing gender justice, political resistance, and healing practices amid some of the country's darkest days. Known for its outspoken advocacy and deep-rooted cultural work, Nègès Mawon creates spaces for survivors of gender-based violence, artists, and activists to reclaim their narratives and support each other. Whether through artistic expression, community action, or direct protest, their work is a defiant celebration of what Haitian womanhood really looks like—unbought, unbossed, and unbroken. Together, these organizations are doing more than offering aid; they are reminding the world that 'Haitian heritage is not just history. It is a living force that continues to shape the world.' More must-reads: Joy Reid warns Black community not to be fooled by Trump's recent pardons Shannon Sharpe postpones 'Nightcap' tour Trump provides coy response when asked if he would pardon Diddy
