FreedomCon 2025: Voices of Freedom

Presented by Carol Durant

Carol Durant is poet, playwright, actor, stage manager and founder, curator and host of Outliers Poetry Brunch. Carol was a featured poet at the 13th Annual Festival of Books at Spencertown Academy Arts Center, Spencertown, NY. She will share her experiences as an author of Cold Pressed and Just Brewed Poetry, a deep, just, refreshing and chill poetry book and Whole Phat and Gluten Free Poetry which was a winner of the 2018 Book Excellence Award. Carol will share with us the stories behind the poems, how they came to be and what they mean for her, and she will read selections from both collections.

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Presented by by Marcus Kwame Anderson and David Walker

Working collaboratively with David F. Walker, an award-winning comic book writer, filmmaker, journalist, and educator, Marcus Anderson and David Walker created a thrilling graphic novel reimagining of the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn that follows Jim, an enslaved man on a journey towards freedom, and his sidekick, Huck, in the antebellum South.

Marcus Kwame Anderson is an illustrator and fine artist. Much of his work explores the beauty and diversity of the African diaspora and often incorporates social commentary. Anderson is the Eisner-winning co-creator of The Black Panther Party, the co-creator of the comic book series Snow Daze, and has illustrated stories in Action Lab’s Cash and Carrie and F.O.R.C.E.

David F. Walker is an award-winning comic book writer, filmmaker, journalist, and educator. Walker is best known for his work in comics, including Shaft: A Complicated Man (Dynamite Entertainment), winner of the 2015 Glyph Award for Story of the Year, and its sequel, Shaft: Imitation of Life. His work for Marvel Comics includes Luke Cage, Occupy Avengers, Power Man and Iron Fist, Nighthawk, Fury, and Deadpool. He’s also worked for DC Comics (Cyborg), Boom! (Planet of the Apes), and IDW/Monkeybrain (The Army of Dr. Moreau). He is the creator of the prose YA series The Adventures of Darius Logan, and author of the novel Shaft’s Revenge, the first new novel starring the iconic black detective in more than forty years.

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Presented by Debra Bruno

A Hudson Valley Reckoning: Discovering the Forgotten History of Slaveholding in My Dutch American Family is a story of a nearly forgotten New York history. When author Debra Bruno realized that her Dutch ancestors had been some of the most entrenched enslavers during 200 years of New York slavery, she knew she had to tell the story. When she met Eleanor Mire, descended from the people her family enslaved, the book expanded into a deeply nuanced and complicated American story.

Author Debra Bruno is a lifelong journalist, based in Washington, D.C. She has written for the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and many other publications, and has worked at Roll Call, Legal Times, and elsewhere. She was a freelance writer in China for three years, where she wrote about subjects as diverse as hutongs, traditional medicine, and tourism.

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Presented by Tom Weiner and Dr. Amilcar Shabazz

This book brings to light the often-suppressed stories of those who risked everything to end enslavement. Profiling 20 Black and white men and women, the book highlights their courage, activism, and unwavering commitment to freedom. Through vivid vignettes, including their own words, their struggles and sacrifices come to life. Amid ongoing efforts to erase history, these stories serve as a powerful corrective—meant to challenge, inspire, and ignite action.

Tom Weiner is a Northampton-based writer, educator, and anti-racism activist who taught for 40 years at Smith College Campus School and co-facilitated workshops on developing healthy boys. He also initiated efforts for a Reparations Commission in Northampton, MA.

Dr. Amilcar Shabazz is a professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and former president of the National Council for Black Studies. A renowned scholar and commentator, he has worked internationally and guided Amherst’s African Heritage Reparations Assembly in establishing one of the U.S.’s first funded reparative justice processes.

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Presented by Susan Stessin-Cohn and Ashley Hurlburt-Biagini

Co-authored by Susan Stessin-Cohn, with Ashley Hurlburt-Biagini, Philip White and Albert Cook, the 34 historical sketches in this book present insights into the lives of Black residents of Ulster County from the early days of enslavement in the 17th and 18th centuries to the blossoming of free Black culture following New York’s abolition of slavery in 1827. These stories provide a rare and invaluable glimpse into the lives of these men and women, chronicling their tragedies and triumphs, and dispelling the long-held popular assumption that slavery in America was a “Southern” institution. The stories of those enslaved in Ulster County have long been underserved by historians, and the lives and identities of many are now lost forever, but new research continues to uncover important genealogical and societal information on who the enslaved and their enslavers were, what their lives were like, and the fate of newly emancipated Blacks and their families. Illustrated with photographs, maps, and historical documents, and a table of census records enumerating white, enslaved, and non-white free populations town-by-town. (Amazon books)

Co-author Susan Stessin-Cohn is a professional genealogist, she has co-curated several exhibits focusing on the history of the Hudson Valley and is currently the Historian for the Town of New Paltz, New York and serves as chair of the New Paltz Historical Society.

Co-author Ashley Hurlburt-Biagini is the former Manager of Collections and Archives at Historic Huguenot Street. She currently works with Jones Family Farms on web design and fundraising. With co-author Susan Stessin-Cohn she has curated various exhibits focusing on 19th century topics.

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Presented by Katie Wu and Louis P. Nelson

In a moment shaped by historic national polarization and disembodied lives spent increasingly online, this book argues that historic sites — including historic courthouses, churches, walking trails, house museums, local monuments, and others — must be used by community leaders to catalyze weighty conversations about our American present and future. The most effective mechanism to counteract these anti-democratic trends is to reconstitute local historic places as centers of community conversations and reflection about our nation’s history, especially across differences.

Katie Wu is a third-year Ph.D. student in the History department at Universit of Virginia. Her work focuses on post-Civil War America, with a particular focus on race, land, and memory. She is interested in the cultural and political landscape animating movements for reparations in the long 20th century.

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Presented by Dionne Patterson

Cinderella was the wife of Abraham Brogden, a freedman who worked at plantation nearby to Belvior where Cinderella was enslaved. In December 1848, when Abraham learned that Cinderella was to be sold out of the area to pay off a debt, the couple fled to Baltimore. . . . Hear the rest of the story from artist Dionne Patterson, author of Cinderella of Belvoir: A Dream of Freedom On the Underground Railroad.

Dionne Patterson, the visionary behind UGR3DAY Underground Railroad Experiences Inc., is dedicated to illuminating the antebellum era by exploring the lives of both free and enslaved African Americans, as well as the multifaceted history of the Underground Railroad.

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