Call for Proposals

Our Shared Histories, Our Shared Work: From Reckoning to Repair

Call for Proposals

Submissions are due by October 5, 2026.

Proposals by individuals and panels of 3-4 people are welcome.

About The Lemon Project: A Journey of Reconciliation

Founded in 2009, the Lemon Project is the second institutionally funded project of its kind in the United States. The Lemon Project is a multifaceted and dynamic attempt to rectify wrongs perpetrated against African Americans by William & Mary through action or inaction. An ongoing endeavor, The Lemon Project explores and encourages scholarship on the 330+ year relationship between African Americans and William & Mary. The Lemon Project builds bridges between William & Mary and African American communities through research, programming, and supporting students, faculty, and staff.

Call for Proposals

Many institutions have long and complex histories with communities whose land and unpaid and/or underpaid labor have been fundamental to their development and enduring success. While some institutions have acknowledged past harms, offered apologies, and pursued reconciliation, building trust requires sustained commitment. Even when approached with deep care and good faith, repair and healing are rarely straightforward.

Reckoning with institutional harm also requires confronting the displacement of communities across race, class, and ethnicity. The 2027 symposium welcomes those engaged in the ongoing work of addressing land dispossession, preserving cultural heritage, and developing meaningful practices of repair rooted in our shared histories.

Guided by The Lemon Project’s mission to “build bridges between William & Mary and African American communities,” we invite individuals and communities to share their stories, histories, and experiences through a range of formats, including research presentations, panel discussions, film, and performance.

The theme of the 17th Annual Lemon Project Spring Symposium, Our Shared Histories, Our Shared Work: From Reckoning to Repair, aims to answer the following questions: How have communities experienced, shaped, and sustained the places, institutions, and nation they call home? What are the emerging best practices on institutional and community collaborative histories and heritage preservation? How can institutions pursue reconciliation and healing while confronting the ongoing harm and tensions that continue to affect the communities they seek to repair relationships with? And how might communities move beyond institutional narratives to tell their own stories—within, alongside, and beyond those institutions?

The symposium is multi-disciplinary and open to all. We seek proposals from people who research Black and/or Indigenous communities and/or institutional histories, including but not limited to academic and descendant and/or family researchers and historians, educators, genealogists, activists, spiritual practitioners, and members of Greater Williamsburg/Virginia communities, communities across the United States, and beyond. We invite a broad range of topics from people who work in the fields of American Studies, Black Studies, Anthropology, History, Public Humanities, Preservation, Oral History, STEM, among others. We also invite community organizers, activists, mental health professionals, and wellness practitioners to submit proposals in areas such as cultural production (art, poetry, music), wellness, and spirituality.

The symposium has six core objectives centered on reckoning, collaboration, and repair:

Build networks among individuals, community groups, and institutions engaged in reckoning with institutional harms.
Share strategies for community-centered, collaborative cultural heritage preservation.
Generate actionable approaches to advance equity, belonging, accountability, and reconciliation.
Center community knowledge, lived experience, and storytelling as essential forms of historical interpretation and public memory.
Examine the ongoing impacts of land dispossession, racial inequity, and institutional decision-making.
Foster partnerships that support sustained repair, reciprocal learning, and meaningful long-term change.

Possible topics include but are not limited to:

Narratives of enslaved and free Black people, reckoning with their roles in the development and maintenance of institutions
Multi-racial coalition building
Reparations and reparative efforts by people and/or institutions
Family histories, local histories, descendant histories, and genealogical studies
Historic preservation, cultural preservation and heritage studies
Land dispossession and displacement
Black and multi-racial LGBTQ+ people and/or community histories
Black and Indigenous healers and ancestral health practices; healing through land, space, and ancestral ties; mental and emotional health
Memory, community healing practices, foodways, and heritage preservation
Municipal and state-level reparative models
Institutional histories of slavery and its legacies

Guidelines for a Submission from an Individual

Complete your submission by applying no later than October 5, 2026. Submissions require the following information:

Name and Email Address
Institutional or Community Affiliation, if applicable
Indicate whether you are a/an: Undergraduate Student, Graduate/Professional Student, Community Member, Faculty, Staff, Administrator, Genealogist, or Not Listed
Title of Individual Submission
Summary of your proposal (1020 characters maximum), including a discussion of how your presentation relates to the symposium theme, and/or question(s) that you will address and/or a call to action. This will be included in the online program.
Brief biography (no more than 750 characters). This will also be included in the online conference program.
If you'd like, you can preview individual submission form.

Submit your Individual Proposal

Guidelines for Panel Submissions

Complete your submission by applying no later than October 5, 2026. Submissions require the following information:

Names and Emails of panelists
Name and Email of Panel Moderator (Required)
Institutional or Community Affiliations, if applicable
Indicate whether panelists are: Undergraduate Students, Graduate/Professional Students, Community Members, Faculty, Staff, Administrators, Genealogists, or Not Listed
Summary of your proposal (1020 characters maximum). This should include a brief discussion of how your presentation relates to the symposium theme, and/or a question that you will attempt to answer and/or a call to action.
Short biography (no more than 750 characters for each person) of each panel participant and the panel moderator.
If you'd like, you can preview the panel submission form.

Submit your panel Proposal

For questions about the 17^th Annual Lemon Project Spring Symposium and/or the Call for Proposals, email the Lemon Project team at lemon@wm.edu.