Slavery North invites you to the first of a series of five Fellow Talks in Spring 2025. David Montero will share his research on how Boston banks financed southern Slavery.
This hybrid talk is open to students, faculty, staff, and members of the public.
Date/Time: Tuesday, March 11, 2025, 3-4 PM (EST)
Location: E501 Tower Room, South College, UMass Amherst, 150 Hicks Way, Amherst, MA, USA, 01003
Online via Zoom:
https://umass-amherst.zoom.us/j/93147778111
Meeting ID: 931 4777 8111
Speaker: David Montero, Slavery North Artist-in-Residence Fellow, 2024-25
Moderator: Dr. Charmaine A. Nelson, Provost Professor of Art History & Founding Director Slavery North
Lecture: Follow the Money: Boston Banks, the Financing of Southern Slavery, and the Enrichment of New England
Lecture abstract:
This project shows how, contrary to popular belief, the sprawling slave labor camps of the South could never have reaped such epic wealth, nor sown such epic misery, without the Boston region, and that Boston could never have prospered without leeching onto this blood-soaked wealth.
The investigative methodology of following the money lays bare the fact that wealth reaped from slavery is now the banks and insurance industries of the Boston area; it is the bridges we drive over, the very streets we walk down, their names still valorizing historic injustices from which Black people continue to suffer to this day.
Bio:
David Montero is an investigative journalist and author. Formerly a documentary producer for PBS FRONTLINE, his work has twice been nominated for an Emmy-award. Montero has written for Time, The New York Times, and The Nation, among others. His most recent book is The Stolen Wealth of Slavery: A Case for Reparations, published by LegacyLit/Hachette Books in February 2024.
