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Black Portsmouth
Three Centuries of African-American Heritage
Revisiting New England
by Mark J. Sammons and Valerie Cunningham
Published by: University of New Hampshire Press
280 Pages, 7.00 x 10.00 x 0.90 in
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MARK J. SAMMONS is the Executive Director of Wentworth-Coolidge Mansion in Portsmouth, and has served as President and Executive Director of the Newburyport Maritime Society, Director of Research at Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth, and Coordinator of Public Buildings at Old Sturbridge Village in Sturbridge, Massachusetts.
VALERIE CUNNINGHAM, award-winning historic preservationist and Portsmouth native, has spent more than thirty years researching and writing about northern New England's Black history. A community activist with seemingly boundless energy, she is the founder of the Portsmouth Black Heritage Trail, Inc. and directs the African American Resource Center.
"The book's creation stands as testament to the lives and contributions of blacks to their community, and to the collaboration possible between people of different races."—www.seacoastonline.com
"Rooted in the lives of individuals, Black Portsmouth: Three Centuries of African American Heritage, is a lively story uncovering the buried history of black life in Portsmouth from 1648 until the present. The reader will meet coopers, tailors, mariners, printers, laundresses, dock workers, teachers, preachers and many more whose skills built a black community within the wider city of Portsmouth. Charles Lenox Redmond, Williams Wells Brown, Frederick Douglass are amount the nationally famous visitors remembered in the city. Other names known mostly in Portsmouth include Fowle, Whipple, Bruce and Spring. All are viewed against the background of the larger national history comprehensively recounted by the authors."—Kenneth A. Heidelberg, Site Manager, Boston African American National Historic Site