The film “Shadows Fall North” will be premiered by the Center for the Humanities at the University of New Hampshire with a screening at the Historical Society of Cheshire County on Wednesday, June 29, at 7 p.m.
The 2016 documentary explores the black experience in New Hampshire’s history as well as the present day work of two historians and activists, Valerie Cunningham of Portsmouth and JerriAnne Boggis of Milford. The film chronicles the recent discovery and reinterment of skeletal remains at the African Burying Ground in Portsmouth and efforts to memorialize significant African Americans in our state’s history.
The film highlights individuals such as Milford’s Harriet Wilson who is considered America’s first African American novelist; 20 Portsmouth slaves who petitioned for their freedom to the N.H. General Assembly in 1779; and Keene’s Dr. Albert C. Johnston who, after passing as white during the 1940s, was featured in the Hollywood film “Lost Boundaries.”
“Black people have been in New Hampshire for over 300 years,” said Boggis in the May 2016 issue of UNH’s “The College Letter” e-newsletter. “The stories in “Shadows Fall North” are not isolated to one place in the State, just as Black history is not isolated to one place in the United States, just as slavery was not isolated to one place — Black history is American history.”
Currently the production team and the Center for the Humanities are working with social studies teachers in the state to explore how the film might be used as an educational resource in K-12 classrooms in New Hampshire and beyond.
The screening is free and open to all.
For more information, contact the society at 352-1895 or visit www.hsccnh.org.