Diversity Talk: From the Slave Ship to City Hall — Africans in Philadelphia

Talk Description

In this first of a two-part presentation, Joe Becton will give us a comprehensive, in-depth look at the history of Africans in Philadelphia From 1688 to 1985. We will begin this exploration with the politics in West Africa that led to the slave trade formation. Joe will cover early African American families and camp meetings, The Black Involvement In The American Revolution, Philadelphia, Race Riots, Discrimination, and Imprisonment. He will also share some little-known facts on The Free African Society, Negro Conventions all the way to race relations and politics in the City of Brotherly Love.

Speaker

Joe Becton is a co-founder of the 3rd Regiment the United States Colored Troops Civil War reenactors started in 1990.In 1995 helped design and develop Exhibit on African Americans in the American Revolution on display on the second floor at the New Hall Military Museum, Independence National Historical Park.

In 2003 Becton appeared in the Emmy award-winning Middlemarch PBS documentary film Ben Franklin: an Extraordinary Life, An Electric Mind.