LUNCH & LEARN SERIES

Listen while you lunch! Join The Alliance for Historic Hillsborough for an hour of Hillsborough history and enlightenment. All Lunch and Learn programs are free, virtual, and will be recorded for convenience. View our past recrodings below and visit our Events page to view upcoming Lunch & Learns and more!

Slavery in 19th-Century Hillsborough & the Burwell School

Drawing upon primary resources, including newspapers and Anna Burwell’s diaries and letters, Steve Peck and Janie Morris will set the stage for how slavery was viewed in the mid-1800s in Hillsborough with a particular emphasis on the Burwell School. Included will be the names of individual people of color, both enslaved and free, who lived and worked in the Burwell household, and what some of their tasks were.

Lunch & Learn 2023

Parish Registry of St. Matthew's

Dr. Graebner will review various entries in the Parish Register to show how an extensive ministry among African Americans was conducted between 1824 and 1865.

Lunch & Learn 2023

Views on Slavery & the Digitization of Records

Due to her extensive genealogical research, the Honorable Judge Scarlett will tell us how people in Hillsborough viewed slavery through written stories by area citizens, slave narratives, area newspaper and court records, and records in the Orange County Register of Deeds Office. As Register of Deeds, Mark Chilton will discuss the Slave Records Project and the Slave Records database for Orange County which was created under his direction. The result has been an archive that has deepened the truth-telling about race in Orange County and has enabled Black and indigenous researchers to discover the rich story of their families and communities.

Lunch & Learn 2023

Interpreting WPA Slave Narratives

Betty Eidenier will discuss this important primary resource created 1936-1939 by the WPA Federal Writers Project to record life histories of people who had been enslaved. She will explain how to locate and use the narratives, which belong to our Library of Congress, and will put in context the interviews which were intended to be faithful verbatim accounts, yet vary by state and by interviewers.

Lunch & Learn 2023

Pilgrimage to Montgomery and Racial Equity

Felton Foushee will discuss his recent bus trip to Montgomery and how the goal of racial equity is still an ongoing endeavor.
 

Lunch & Learn 2023

St. Matthew’s Tour and Picnic

The General Assembly of North Carolina originally constituted St. Matthew’s Parish in 1752 as the established church in the County of Orange. The parish was reorganized in 1824, and the present church building was begun in 1825 and completed in 1826. It was consecrated by the Right Reverend John Stark Ravenscroft, the first Episcopal Bishop of North Carolina on May 21, 1826. As St. Matthew’s approaches the bicentennial celebrations of these events with a fresh reconsideration of its shared history with the Hillsborough community and a renewed commitment to future engagement, we invite visitors to find out more through a walking tour and picnic lunch!

Lunch & Learn 2022

Behind the Scenes of What’s Your Flavor with the Orange County Historical Museum

Orange County Historical Museum exhibits and programs coordinator, Courtney Smith, will discuss the process of putting their newest exhibit, What’s Your Flavor?, together from idea to installation. Site manager Tanya Day will present her favorite aspects of the exhibit.

Lunch & Learn 2022

"Collective History" Book Talk with Author Amanda Boyd

Lunch & Learn 2022