Threads of Freedom: A Celebration of Music, History, and Heroes

At Iliff, we honor spiritual traditions that recognize the inherent dignity of all people.

Iliff School of Theology

Performance by the Spirituals Project, followed by our keynote speaker, Dr. Cheryl LaRoche, historian, and Underground Railroad Scholar.

<h3>Event Details:</h3>Join us for our annual Vincent G. Harding Day at Iliff, where we celebrate the life and work of Vincent G. and Rosemarie Freeney Harding and their commitment to education, justice, and peace toward building a multiethnic, multiracial, multigenerational, and multi-faith democracy.We invite you for an evening celebration, where we’ll kick things off with hors d’oeuvres and an African-American quilt display. Join us for a performance by the Spirituals Project, followed by our keynote speaker, Dr. Cheryl LaRoche, historian, and underground railroad scholar, who will share more about her work on Paul Quinn, an African Methodist Episcopal Bishop who guided enslaved people to freedom through the underground railroad. <h3>About the Speaker:</h3>Historical Archaeologist Dr. Cheryl Janifer LaRoche began her career as an archaeological conservator, preserving the grave goods from the African Burial Ground archaeological site in New York City. Dr. LaRoche’s expertise includes archaeology, African American history, and material culture. Her work on the Underground Railroad, free Black communities, and the AME Church is unparalleled – this work is what brought William Paul Quinn to her attention. She has contributed to numerous scholarly works, museums, documentaries, and archaeological projects and is a dynamic and compelling speaker. Most recently she has been working as an ethnohistorian, collecting family stories from the descendants of the those who were once held in slavery on National Park Service sites. She has worked for numerous cultural and historical institutions, including the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, where she was the project historian for the “Cultural Expressions” inaugural exhibition. She is an associate research professor in Historic Preservation in the School of Architecture at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is grateful for the numerous awards she has received across her career. Dr. LaRoche is the author of Free Black Communities and the Underground Railroad: the Geography of Resistance. Her latest book, Apostle of Liberation: AME Bishop Paul Quinn and the Underground Railroad was published by Rowman &amp; Littlefield earlier this year. <h3>About the Spirituals Project:</h3>In 1998, <a href="https://liberalarts.du.edu/lamont/spirituals-project" title="https://liberalarts.du.edu/lamont/spirituals-project" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">The Spirituals Project</a> was founded by Arthur C. Jones to preserve and revitalize the music and teachings of the sacred folk songs called “spirituals,” created and first sung by African Americans in slavery. The Spirituals Project is a past recipient of the Denver Mayor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts. The Project has presented a wide variety of high-profile musical and educational programs over the years, including a national conference on spirituals in 2013 featuring poet Nikki Giovanni as keynote speaker, and a historic concert in 2009 at Denver’s Ellie Caulkins Opera House in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s 80th birthday, featuring the renowned mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves as a guest artist. In September 2018, The Spirituals Project Choir performed with renowned opera soprano Kathleen Battle as she presented her concert, “Underground Railroad: A Spiritual Journey” at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House, Denver.With the official transition of The Spirituals Project to the University of Denver, the multi-ethnic Spirituals Project Choir will present concerts in a variety of venues and will continue to present educational programs regionally and nationally.

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