Ads for runaway slaves tell story of Macon’s past in student-curated exhibit

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Two men stand in front of an audience, speaking animatedly, with colorful artwork featuring an American flag in the background.
Mercer professor Dr. Matthew Harper and Tubman Museum Curator Jeff Bruce speak to Mercer students at the museum during the planning stages of the "Freedom Seekers" exhibit in fall 2024. Photo by Christopher Ian Smith

A new museum exhibit curated by Mercer University students tells the names and stories of enslaved people in Macon in the 1800s and provides additional perspective on the city’s past. 

“Freedom Seekers,” coming to the Tubman Museum in Macon, features advertisements for runaway slaves published in the Macon Telegraph from 1823-1865. The exhibit will open with a reception from 3-5 p.m. Jan. 26 and run through March 22. Museum hours are 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. Admission is free for museum members and Mercer students and $5 for all others. 

Following an exhibit about the “Enslaved People Project” in 2023, “Freedom Seekers” can be seen as the second chapter of an ongoing narrative at the Tubman Museum, Curator Jeff Bruce said. The third chapter will be an exhibit that focuses on free people of color in Macon, tentatively planned for the end of 2025. Bruce hopes the three exhibits can eventually find a permanent home together in one location.

Silhouette of three figures running with a caption about runaway slave advertisements in the Macon Telegraph, 1826-1865.
The “Freedom Seekers” exhibit logo was designed by Mercer student Naluchi Okonkwo, a graphic design intern for the project.

“It’s three exhibits that talk about three aspects of African American life,” Bruce said. “What we’re trying to do is paint a picture to the public of the lives and experiences of Black people at the beginning of Macon. (It) puts together a pretty comprehensive picture of what life was like for Black people from the founding of Macon to the end of the Civil War.”

Dr. Matt Harper, associate professor of history and Africana studies, said his “Freedom Seekers” project was inspired by the “Enslaved People Project,” which digitized slavery transaction records in Bibb County deed books. The research was a collaborative effort between Bibb County Superior Court Clerk Erica L. Woodford and her office, Mercer University Libraries and Mercer’s Department of Africana Studies.

“It was an exhibit of documents. These were deeds from the courthouse of the buying and selling of enslaved people. I had not really thought about the power of documents displayed like an art gallery,” Dr. Harper said. 

Dr. Harper and his students previously conducted research related to slaves who worked at the historic Jarrell Plantation in Jones County and Black Maconites buried at the historic Linwood Cemetery in Pleasant Hill. From combing through the Macon Telegraph archives, he knew there were more stories to tell through runaway slave ads. 

A group of people attentively listen to a gallery guide in a brightly lit art exhibit space.
Tubman Museum Curator Jeff Bruce speaks with Mercer students about the “Freedom Seekers” exhibit during the planning stages in fall 2024. Photo by Christopher Ian Smith

During the fall semester, students in his African American history course used two online databases to look through Telegraph issues. They identified all ads related to runaway slaves and selected the most compelling ones for the exhibit. 

Macon was a center for slave trading in the region and also a destination for runaway slaves, and every Telegraph issue from 1823-1865 contained ads for runaway slaves. The ads tell stories of people who were running away to be reunited with spouses, family and friends, mostly to cities that were nearby, Dr. Harper said. 

“One of the things that comes through really quickly in the ads is that one of the real traumas of slavery is the loss of the ability to be with your family and keep your family safe. Slavery is preventing people from being with their loved ones, and that is such a powerful motivator,” Dr. Harper said. “Those real stories made (students) see life as not just two-dimensional.”

The ads also point to sought-after skills, including brick masonry, carpentry, fine woodworking, sewing, and supply transporting. With these talents, enslaved people could escape into the city to start their own business to support themselves, Dr. Harper said. 

Junior Latoya Bartley, a history and anthropology double-major, said the project changed her perception of slavery.

“I had a very one-sided or myopic view of what I thought slavery was,” she said. “I just envisioned a plantation and people working in fields all day, but it was so much more complex than that. (Enslaved people) did literally every job you could think of, every kind of labor. Seeing it written down and recorded really brings it to life.”

The students also analyzed the placement of the runaway slave ads in the newspaper and the language that was used to describe the enslaved people. For example, one newspaper page showed a runaway slave ad about a woman named Emma alongside ads for renting a plantation, renting slaves, selling clothes meant for slaves, and a slave auction in downtown Macon.

“The whole newspaper is about slavery, and it just really helps you get a sense that slavery is not just one feature of the Macon economy. It’s just absolutely foundational to every part of the economy,” Dr. Harper said. “Macon is really built by enslaved people and by their particular skills.”

Junior Brandon Biel, a double-major in political science and history, said it was shocking to read the word choices and see ads for escaped slaves next to ads for livestock. 

“A lot of it has to do with the commodification of slavery, and the (idea that) these aren’t people, they’re goods,” he said. “It really highlighted the complete lack of humanity, but you could still see some elements come through.”

While many other documents written by enslavers intentionally left out names and personal details of enslaved people, the ads include information that brings life to their untold stories.

“We get to see the people’s personalities, their skills, the people that they love,” Dr. Harper said. “Enslaved people don’t just hide as faceless, nameless tally marks. They come in this exhibit as fully fleshed-out people who have family and have heartaches and have joys and skills. That’s exciting to see — that we can take a group of people who have been denied a place in history, denied a name, and give and say a name.”

The students wrote the content for the exhibit and met with Bruce at the Tubman Museum a few times. Bruce said he talked with them about how the public engages with museums and shared what the Tubman Museum had done with the “Enslaved People Project,” which the students used as a guide for presenting their research. Some of the students also helped to install the exhibit earlier in January.

Senior Naluchi Okonkwo, a double-major in global health students and Spanish, and a double-minor in graphic design and statistics, provided graphic design services to the class as an intern for the project. She selected the color schemes and fonts, designed the exhibition logo and additional graphics for the exhibit, and created promotional materials, Dr. Harper said. 

Okonkwo met with the class a few times throughout the semester to present her ideas and receive feedback. She said the other students helped her to fully understand the content and context, so she could “produce a more impactful design.”

“Black history is a part of the history of our country,” Bartley said. “This exhibit shows that being critical isn’t the same thing as being negative. We’re allowed to tell the truth, even though it may be uncomfortable. History is necessary. It’s so incredibly useful for thinking about our contemporary history, not just our past.”

Okonkwo encouraged community members and Mercer students to visit the exhibit to get a better sense of the history of their home or their home away from home.

“It’s a blanket statement to say that slavery was in the South, because slavery looked different in every state,” she said. “What was happening in Atlanta was not the same thing that was happening in Macon. It’s important that the Macon and Mercer community is aware of the history that shaped what we know as Macon today because the history does matter.”

Dr. Harper hopes “Freedom Seekers” leads to similar collaborative projects in the future. 

“I’m hoping that it opens up even more opportunities for collaboration between Mercer student research and other cultural and public history institutions that we have. Macon’s history is so rich,” Dr. Harper said. 

A group of people seated in a classroom setting with a man speaking at the front.
Tubman Museum Curator Jeff Bruce speaks with Mercer students about the “Freedom Seekers” exhibit during the planning stages in fall 2024. Photo by Christopher Ian Smith

 

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