The Norwich Historical Society’s mission is to help preserve, protect and promote the rich history of Norwich, CT. The Norwich Historical Society hosts an Annual Meeting, which includes a brief business meeting and report, followed by a program open to the public.

The 2019 Annual Meeting will feature two speakers discussing themes related to the recently completed Norwich Freedom Trail. Norwich resident, Lottie B. Scott, will talk about her new book Deep South Deep North: A Family’s Journey. Additionally, Central Connecticut State University Professor, Dr. Robert Wolff, will speak on exploring the makings of American memory, from “bricks and mortar” sites like museums and historic plantations, to digital spaces like Wikipedia. Dr. Wolff’s research and teaching interests lie primarily in the areas of slavery and abolition in the Americas.

Copies of Lottie Scott’s book will be available for sale and signing. There will be light refreshments and this program is free and open to the public. The Annual Meeting will be held in the Story Room near the children’s area at Otis Library.

About the book:

In Deep South – Deep North: A Family’s Journey, Lottie B. Scott tells both the heartbreaking and triumphant tale of her maturation into adulthood against a racially-charged, impoverished, yet fiercely loving backdrop in Longtown, South Carolina.

Scott traces her family history, peppered with familial violence and love alike. She describes her early childhood years of living amidst a sea of brothers, until little sisters finally arrived. Under the cloud of racial discrimination, difficult farm working conditions, and family tensions, Scott describes the unbreakable bonds of love that eventually emerged to forever bind her family members together. As the passing years turn to decades, and family members move north, Scott reveals how these bonds of love become a transformative power, forever altering the lives of each member of her family.

About the author:

Lottie B. Scott was born and raised on a farm in Longtown, South Carolina. In 1957, she moved to Norwich, Connecticut, where she raised her son and has called Norwich home ever since. She has been involved in Civil Rights and Civil Liberties as a Leader and Advocate for fifty-five years in Norwich and Connecticut.

She worked for the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities (CHRO) for twenty-two years. She currently serves as Vice Chair of the City of Norwich Ellis Walter Ruley

Committee and on the City of Norwich Sachem Fund and Norwich Disabilities Committees. In 2017, she received the Willard M. McRae Community Diversity Award and a Writer’s Block Ink Humanitarian ACE Award.

About the speaker:

Robert S. Wolff received a B.A. with Honors from Swarthmore College in 1988, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1991 and 1998 respectively. He came to Central Connecticut State University in 1997. He served as department chair, 2003-2006, and as assistant to the dean from 2007 until 2012. He teaches an undergraduate methods course that explores the Amistad Revolt in the Atlantic World, advanced undergraduate seminar on African Enslavement in the Americas, and graduate seminar on the U.S. Civil War & Reconstruction.

For graduate students he recently developed a course entitled Slavery and Abolition in American Memory. He is currently at work on two research projects of note. The first is an article-length exploration of evangelicalism in the antebellum antislavery and African colonization movements. The second is a monograph that traces the Amistad Revolt in history and memory, tentatively entitled, Amistad Remembered: History, Memory and the Making of the Abolitionist Past.