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Capital Campus Library

Capital Black Heritage Project

Introduction

Here is your guide to research on the Black Heritage Project at the Arthur C. Banks Library. Notice the tabs along the top of the screen, select the one that best matches your informational need.

Capital Community College (CCC) is the recipient of a $149,426 National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grant focusing on the history and people of Hartford’s historic Talcott Street Church and Black School. 

The Humanities Initiative award, part of Capital’s Hartford Heritage Project, will support place-based learning in Black history for students at the college and Capital Preparatory Magnet School (Capital Prep) in partnership with nearby museums. Capital Community College is one of 7 institutions out of 66 applicants nationwide to receive a Humanities Initiatives grant at Hispanic Serving Institutions  in 2020.

It is one of 21 NEH Humanities Initiatives grants nationwide that will advance curricular innovations and enhance educational resources at colleges and universities.

The project will develop 12 courses at Capital Community College and three subjects at Capital Prep.  An exhibition is planned to support pedagogy and commemorate the historic site of the church. The grant will support the inauguration of an annual public lecture called The Pennington Lecture, named after Talcott Church pastor James W.C. Pennington and themed on understanding race issues through the lens of the humanities. Taken from About@Capital Weblog, a weblog for alumni and friends of Capital Community College, Hartford, Connecticut.

James Pennington. was black orator, minister, and abolitionist, according to the African American Registry. He settled in New Haven, and audited classes at Yale Divinity School from 1834 to 1839, becoming the first black American to attend classes at Yale. He was subsequently ordained and became a teacher, abolitionist, and author.