**Due to internet issues in the area, Eola Lewis Dance’s talk is being postponed until next Monday, April 12 at 7 pm**
In February, Governor Ralph Northam announced that Fort Monroe, the site where the first Africans were brought to English speaking North America in 1619, was named a “site of memory” with the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization’s slave route project. Join Eola Lewis Dance, Acting Superintendent for the Fort Monroe National Monument on Facebook Live as she discusses contraband communities, archeology, and descendant engagement.
Dance is a 20-year employee of the National Park Service. She has served in many roles in public history and historic preservation to include Frederick Douglass National Historic Site, Carter G. Woodson Home, and Harriet Tubman National Monument and Historical Park. After serving as the National Capital Regional Ethnographer, Eola joined the team at Colonial National Historical Park as the Park Historian and supervisor of Resources Stewardship and Science. In that role Eola manages a team of biologists, archeologists, and collections managers. Similarly, Eola served as the Chief of Resources Management at Fort Monroe from 2012 – 2014. With a commitment to descendant community engagement and the arts, Eola specializes in utilizing these approaches in discussing difficult topics in history. She received a BA in History from Southern University A & M College, an MA in Historic Preservation from Savannah College of Art and Design, and a graduate certificate in Environmental Policy from The George Washington University. Eola is currently a third year PhD student at Howard University majoring in US History with a minor in African Diaspora and Public History. Her research focuses on race in 17th Century America, the evolution of racialized slavery, as well as opportunities for healing and reconciliation.
