NEW IBERIA, La. --- The Shadows-on-the-Teche's Telling the Full History lecture series is featuring four respected Louisiana historians who will present public programs on Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and Civil Rights history for southern Louisiana with a focus on Iberia Parish.
Professor Kenetha Harrington will present a talk entitled Shadow Work: The Secret lives of an Enslaved Community on a Louisiana Sugar Plantation on Sat., Nov. 6 at 2 p.m.
Harrington is a Ph. D. candidate in Anthropology at Louisiana State University. She received a Masters in Education from Saint Xavier University in Chicago, and has extensive experience working with children. She taught theatre courses for gifted high school and middle school students, as well as public speaking fundamentals in Jefferson Parish public schools.
Harrington also served as the Director of Education and Lead Instructor at the International Performing Arts Academy in New Orleans. She has completed archaeological field work at The Hill in Easton, Mass., and James Madison’s Montpelier in Orange, Va.
The scholar has worked with Shadows before as the 2019 National Trust for Historic Preservation summer intern, where her work focused on connecting enslaved people on the Weeks family plantations to descendants through genealogy research. She was recently contracted to conduct additional research leading to a more comprehensive understanding of the African American experience at Shadows.
Harrington will speak onsite at the Shadows Visitor Center (320 E. Main St.).
There will be limited seating with required reservations. To reserve a seat, please contact Shadows at (337) 369-6446. The lecture is free to attend and masks are required.
The program will also be live streamed via
Facebook and Zoom for those who are unable to attend onsite. The public can register
here to receive the link for the Zoom presentation.
The series will conclude with a lecture on Nov. 13 by Dr. Ian Beamish, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, who will discuss the need for reinterpretation of enslavement sites.
Funded through a Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Rebirth Grant, this series is part of the reinterpretation work the Shadows is currently undergoing to tell a more complete history of the site and the people who lived, worked, and were enslaved on the Weeks family plantations.
Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities:
This program is funded under a grant from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
About the Shadows-on-the-Teche:
The Shadows-on-the-Teche, National Trust for Historic Preservation site, opened to the public in 1961 with the mission to preserve the buildings, landscape, collections, and historical integrity of the site; to research and interpret through education programs a 19th century southern Louisiana plantation economy and community and their evolution; and to encourage an appreciation of and interest in historic preservation.
The Shadows and the National Trust are not-for-profit organizations that are responsible for their own operating budgets. The Shadows does not receive funding from federal, state, parish, or city government. The site supports itself through admissions, special programs and events, and donations to the Friends of the Shadows. For more information, visit
ShadowsOnTheTeche.org.
