The GU272 Descendants Association's free 2025 Virtual Juneteenth celebration will discuss the history and future of freedom - how newly freed African American families reunited during Reconstruction and how their descendants can preserve access to their ancestral stories.
Our featured speakers include Judith Giesberg, Ph.D., Robert M. Birmingham Chair in the Humanities Professor, Department of History at Villanova University, Director of The Last Seen Project and author of Last Seen: The Enduring Search by Formerly Enslaved People to Find Their Lost Families; Jessica Dorman, Ph.D., Director of Publications at The Historic New Orleans Collection; Christopher Smothers, Historian, Genealogist, and Historical Justice Advocate; and more.
Lectures include:
Last Seen: The Enduring Search by Formerly Enslaved People to Find Their Lost Families - Judith Giesberg, Ph.D.
Of all the many horrors of slavery, the cruelest was the separation of families in slave auctions. Spouses and siblings were sold away from one other. Young children were separated from their mothers. Fathers were sent down river and never saw their families again.
As soon as slavery ended in 1865, family members began to search for one another, in some cases persisting until as late as the 1920s. They took out “information wanted” advertisements in newspapers and sent letters to the editor. Pastors in churches across the country read these advertisements from the pulpit, expanding the search to those who had never learned to read or who did not have access to newspapers. These documents demonstrate that even as most white Americans—and even some younger Black Americans, too—wanted to put slavery in the past, many former slaves, members of the “Freedom Generation,” continued for years, and even decades, to search for one another. These letters and advertisements are testaments to formerly enslaved people’s enduring love for the families they lost in slavery, yet they spent many years buried in the storage of local historical societies or on microfilm reels that time forgot.
Judith Giesberg draws on the archive that she founded—containing almost five thousand letters and advertisements placed by members of the Freedom Generation—to compile these stories in a narrative form for the first time. Her in-depth research turned up additional information about the writers, their families, and their enslavers. With this critical context, she recounts the moving stories of the people who placed the advertisements, the loved ones they tried to find, and the outcome of their quests to reunite.
This story underscores the cruelest horror of slavery—the forced breakup of families—and the resilience and determination of the formerly enslaved. Thoughtful, heart-wrenching, and illuminating, Last Seen finally gives this lesser-known aspect of slavery the attention it deserves.
In Search of Lost Friends - Jessica Dorman, Ph.D.
Two dollars in 1880 bought a yearlong subscription to the Southwestern Christian Advocate, a newspaper published in New Orleans by the Methodist Book Concern and distributed to nearly 500 preachers, 800 post offices, and more than 4,000 subscribers in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Arkansas. Lost Friends notices, which ran well into the first decade of the 20th century, featured messages from individuals searching for loved ones lost in slavery.
The Lost Friends project at the Historic New Orleans Collection originated as a companion to the 2015 exhibition Purchased Lives and has since grown to include more than 2,500 advertisements in a searchable database. The project has inspired a 2020 New York Times best-selling novel (The Book of Lost Friends) and a multimedia Lincoln Center art installation—and remains a cornerstone of HNOC’s commitment to African American family research.
Freedom on Paper: Fighting for Access, Equity, and Historical Truth - Christopher Smothers
In this powerful Juneteenth presentation, historian and genealogist Christopher Smothers—speaking on behalf of Reclaim the Records—explores the urgent need for equitable access to historical and genealogical records. Drawing on his work as a historical justice advocate, Christopher will illuminate the advocacy behind Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) campaigns, the systemic barriers to records access, and the dangers of historical erasure for Black communities. Attendees will gain insight into how legal action, digitization, and community-centered archives can help reclaim ancestral legacies and preserve the truth for future generations. This talk is both a call to action and a celebration of liberation through the preservation of memory.
The event will unfold online via the Zoom platform on Saturday, 14 June 2025, starting at 10 AM Eastern Time. Space is limited (available by completing this registration form until full).
Note: This event will be recorded and shared on the Association's YouTube Channel
Virtual Event: You will receive the Zoom link via the email you provided 24 hours before the start of the event.
Questions??? contact us at: certify@gu272.net
