Thursday, September 10th, 2026
Richard I. Burnham Resource Center | 82 Touro Street, Newport
Admission $15 – $20 per person | *Student Discounts now available $10 with valid student ID
6:30pm to 7:30pm; doors open at 5:30pm for a complimentary reception
In Jamestown, a thriving Black community took root far earlier, in the late 19th century. A Peaceful Patch of Earth explores their remarkable journey in a time marked by racial turbulence in America.
The story unfolds on a rustic island jutting into the vast Atlantic from Narragansett Bay, accessible only by boat and sheltered from the outside world. Through captivating narrative and in-depth research, the book brings to life the island’s pioneering figures such as James Howland, one of Rhode Island’s last survivors of slavery, and the Champlin family members who rose from slavery, established the first Black-owned farm, and were the first island Blacks to vote. The community lived within view of historic Newport; a city that controlled 70% of the American-owned slave trade in the 18th century and where their African ancestors disembarked into bondage. By the 19th century, Jamestown Blacks lived free and cultivated a community that offered refuge to the tide of newly freed survivors of slavery migrating from the South. Together they forged the social, cultural, and economic fabric of a multiracial rural New England.
For more information and to purchase tickets for this program visit https://newporthistory.org/calendar-of-events/