The 16th Annual Lemon Project Spring Symposium

Friday, March 20

Symposium Event

Location

8:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.

Registration

School of Education, Concourse

8:00 a.m. - 9:00 a.m.

Breakfast 

Concourse

8:55 a.m. - 9:10 a.m.

Reading of Land and Labor Acknowledgments

Welcome by Dr. Jajuan Johnson, Interim Robert Francis Engs Director of The Lemon Project

School of Education, Matoaka Woods

9:10 a.m. - 10:40 a.m. 

Keynote by Dr. Daniel Black, Followed by Q&A

Matoaka Woods

10:40 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.

Book Signing/Break

 Concourse

Three Concurrent Panels

11:00 a.m. - 12:15 p.m.

Panel 1: Reclaiming the 19^th Century History of the Amblers House in James City County, Virginia

Matoaka Woods

Panel 2: From Ancestral Ground to Living Monument: Courage, Dignity, and Hope in the 313+ Ancestors Speak Project

School of Education, Dogwood

Panel 3: Unfinished Business: An Unpanel with Enslaved and Enslaver Descendants

School of Education, Holly

12:15 p.m. - 1:15 p.m.

Lunch

Matoaka Woods

Three Concurrent Panels

1:15 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.

Panel 4: Curating 400 Years Of African American History on Maryland’s Eastern Shore

Matoaka Woods 

Panel 5: The Road to Dawn: Resilience, Repair and the Power of Stories

Dogwood

Panel 6: Reckoning and Relationship: Descendant Collaboration in Amherst College’s Racial Reckoning Project

Holly

2:30 p.m. - 2:45 p.m.

Break

Three Concurrent Panels

2:45 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.

Panel 7: Flesh and Fragility: Recentering the Black Male Gaze

Matoaka Woods

Panel 8: Rewriting 300 Years of Public History at the Rosewell Ruins

Dogwood

Panel 9: Resilience of Communities through Art, Culture, and Intellectual Legacies

Holly

4:00 p.m. -4:15 p.m.

Break

Three Concurrent Panels

4:15 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.

Panel 10: Stolen, Trafficked, Enslaved, Erased: Reclaiming and Retelling Their Stories and Ours

Matoaka Woods

Panel 11: The 2025 Preservation Virginia African American Fellowship: A Summer of Community Research

Dogwood

Panel 12: Learning from Genealogy and Family Histories

Holly

5:30 p.m. - 6:30 p.m.

“Food, Fun, and Fellowship: A Community Reception”

Matoaka Woods & Concourse

Saturday, March 22

8:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.

Registration

School of Education, Concourse

8:00 a.m. - 9:10 a.m.

Breakfast

Concourse

Three Concurrent Panels

9:10 a.m. - 10:25 a.m.

Descendant Communities Speak Plenary Panel

Matoaka Woods

10:25 a.m. - 10:45 a.m.

Break

Three Concurrent Panels

10:45 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.

Panel 13: Community Resilience

Matoaka Woods

Panel 14: Joy, Memory, and Power: How Descendant Communities are Fortifying the Future

Dogwood

Panel 15: Black Women’s Lives and Histories

Holly

12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.

Lunch

Poster Viewing

 Concourse

Three Concurrent Panels

1:00 p.m. - 2:15 p.m.

Panel 16: Displaced from the Birthplace of America

Matoaka Woods

Panel 17: Lemon Project Graduate Student Panel

Dogwood

Panel 18: Florence Barber's Norfolk Diary and the Black Women's Diaries Project

Holly

2:15 p.m. - 2:35 p.m.

Break

Three Concurrent Panels

2:35 p.m. - 3:50 p.m.

Panel 19: It Takes a Village: The Evolution of Black Birth in America

Matoaka Woods

Panel 20: The Labor of Storytelling

Dogwood

Panel 21: Together, Lynchburg Stands – with Courage, Dignity & Joy

Holly

7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.

Unity Gathering at Hearth

Hearth: Memorial to the Enslaved

(Rain location: Lodge 1, Sadler Center)