The Slavery North Initiative Gets a Boost in Funding from the Mellon Foundation

The University of Massachusetts Amherst has received a three-year $2.65 million grant from the Mellon Foundation to enhance the Slavery North Initiative. The initiative is led by provost professor of art history, Charamaine A. Nelson, who serves as the initiative’s founding director. This is the largest grant that the University of Massachusetts Amherst has ever received from the Mellon Foundation. The Slavery North Initiative, founded in 2020, aims to bring public attention to the history, as well as social and cultural impacts of trans-Atlantic slavery. The Mellon Foundation’s grant will help Dr. Nelson and the University of Massachusetts Amherst develop the initiative’s graduate and undergraduate fellowship programs. Additionally, these funds will contribute to a three-person staff, a lecture series, Black History Month panels, an academic conference, an edited academic book, a podcast series, workshops, art and culture exhibitions, and a historical database for primary sources on the study of slavery in Canada and the United States. “A fellows program is at the heart of this grant so that we can grow this field of research. Since there are not many scholars studying slavery in the U.S. North and Canada, the ability to grow the field is limited,” Dr. Nelson said....