Fade to Black: Race, Repression, and Resistance in Boston’s Spiritualist Movement

While Hydesville, New York is the birthplace of Modern American Spiritualism, the movement proliferated in cities like Chicago and Boston. This lecture examines the role of race in the rich legacy of Boston’s Spiritualist Movement from 1850-1900. Specifically, it focuses on how racial prejudices in the movement created at times inhospitable environments for African American Spiritualists. Despite these oppressive conditions, as this lecture will show, African Americans made valuable contributions to Spiritualism in general and in the Bostonian Movement in particular.