CAMDEN — Kate McMahon PhD is the featured speaker for the Camden Rockport Historical Society’s renewed winter speaker series on Sunday, February 11, at 2 p.m., at the Camden Public Library’s Picker Room. The program will have a Zoom option so viewers may participate from home in the event of inclement weather. Interested viewers can find the Zoom link to participate remotely at librarycamden.org.

McMahon will speak on Freedom’s Woods: Peterborough and African Americans in Midcoast Maine, 1776-1865 The historic African American community of Peterborough was founded by Amos and Sarah Peters in Warren, Maine. Amos and Sarah built a community based upon kinship and freedom-making in the woods of rural Maine that existed until the early 20th Century. This talk will explore the history of Peterborough, and the broader history of African Americans in Maine during the 18th  and 19th  centuries.

An added bonus to this already intriguing piece of local history is an update on the care that the town of Warren is taking of the cemetery of Peterborough. Warren’s Sexton, Amanda Shelmerdine will share about her work researching and dedicating a war memorial for the veterans of the Peterborough community.

Kate McMahon is the historian of Global Slavery at the National Museum of African American History & Culture and leads research efforts at the Center for the Study of Global Slavery. She currently leads research on an exhibition that will open at the NMAAHC in December 2024, titled In Slavery’s Wake: Making Black Freedom in the World.

She received her B.A. in Art History and M.A. in American and New England Studies from the University of Southern Maine. She completed her Ph.D. in History at Howard University in 2017. Her dissertation was entitled The Transnational Dimensions of Africans and African Americans in Northern New England, 1776-1865. Her current research explores New England’s connections to and complicity in the illegal slave trade and colonialism, 1809-1900. She is committed to exploring the living legacies of slavery and the slave trade in the present day and interpreting this history for a broader public.

“The Historical Society and the Camden Public Library are proud to bring Dr. McMahon back to Maine for Black History month,” said Camden Rockport Historical Society, in a news release.

To register for a Zoom link for this program call the library at 236-3440 or email Librarycamden.org.