Course Overview: The 1864 photo of USCT Pvt. Hubbard Pryor became a national recruitment tool for the U.S. Army and Black male pride in the fight for Emancipation. Then it vanished from memory, only to resurface as a depiction of Gabriel, the enslaved Virginia blacksmith who led a well-organized, if thwarted large-scale rebellion more than 60 years before. What can we learn from the stories of these two men?

Public historian and American Civil War Museum education manager, Ana Edwards, explores the lives of these men and the legacy of the image used to represent both these men who challenged slavery — and its ongoing use in public history and social justice activities today.

Session 1, August 10:
We will introduce you to Gabriel’s Rebellion, the most politically significant attempted slave rebellion in Virginia’s 18th-century history, the fate of its participants and how it consistently transcended attempts to erase it from public memory — black and white. Sandwiched as it was between the American, French, and the Haitian revolutions, the Virginia insurrection embodied the deepest fears of the US slavocracy and the persistent strivings for abolition in a democratic republic.

Session 2, August 17:
We will share the brief biography of Hubbard Pryor, a man who heard the call so eloquently declared in Frederick Douglass’ “Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letters U.S.; let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder, and bullets in his pocket, and there is no power on the earth or under the earth which can deny that he has earned the right of citizenship in the United States,” and escaped slavery to be a part of this unparalleled opportunity.