Students Presenting Drama of Fugitive Slave Law Protest

The National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum will host the Peterboro Freedom Festival: Juneteenth 2023, on Saturday, June 17th. The festival will feature portions of a drama written about the Anti-Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 Convention in Cazenovia by Julia Grella O’Connell by students from the Music and Theater Arts Department at SUNY Broome.

Dr. O’Connell created the course “From Spirituals to Hip Hop: American Music of the African Diaspora.” Each semester Dr. O’Connell develops a project-based learning initiative to encourage her students to see the place of their own work in the stream of Black music history and creates an interactive capstone project in the interest of equity and of engaging students of diverse backgrounds.

In the Fall of 2022, she created a musical living history program about the 1850 Fugitive Slave Convention in Cazenovia. Students perform the roles of various people who attended the Convention. She also did research on music associated with identified persons at the Convention.

O’Connell is a music scholar who has published articles on topics in nineteenth- and twentieth-century music. She is the author of the book Sound, Sin, and Conversion in Victorian England (Routledge, 2018). As a mezzo-soprano soloist, she has performed throughout the United States and Europe, and co-founded the research-driven chamber music ensembles the Risorgimento Project and the New York Victorian Consort. She received her Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and teaches at SUNY Broome.

Sha-Diamond Evans, who portrays Emily Edmonson, is a SUNY Broome Community College honors graduate, with an associate’s degree in music recording and production. She will be studying Africana Studies and History at Binghamton University in the fall. In 2021, Sha-Diamond curated the multimedia art exhibit “Rooted in the Land: The Music of Black Americans” for the Gallery@SUNY Broome, leading her to discover her passion for history and museum and curatorial work.

Juan Soriano is in his last semester at SUNY Broome, where he is majoring in studio engineering and beat production. He is also a participant in multiple choirs and musical ensembles, and is giving voice to Frederick Douglass. He plans to apprentice in a recording studio.

Rónán O’Connell, portraying Gerrit Smith, is an eleventh-grader and an avid singer, fiddler, and historian. Rónán has performed in the children’s chorus in several productions at Tri-Cities Opera, and sung in the sailors’ chorus in the Summer Savoyards’ production of H.M.S. Pinafore in 2022. He is interested in a career in historical preservation carpentry.

Admission to the Saturday drama program is by donation. A Sandwich Shop will be open from noon to 5 pm at the Smithfield Community Center, sponsored by Peterboro United Methodist Church. A bag lunch containing a sandwich of choice — ham, turkey, egg salad, or hot meat ball, and a bag of chips, apple, cookie, and a bottle of water for fifteen dollars will be prepared by reservations. Sandwich reservations must be by June 10th, and can be completed by calling (315) 849-7540 or emailing denisonnaomi491@gmail.com.

For more information visit the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum website, email nahofm1835@gmail.com, or call (315) 308-1890.

Photo: A daguerreotype made at the 1850 Anti-Fugitive Slave Law Convention in Cazenovia courtesy Madison County Historical Society.