Reconnection II
August 8-9, 2007

Please join us for Reconnection II, a public history event to be held Wednesday and Thursday, August 8-9, 2007, in Kansas City, Kansas at The Woodlands. The purpose of this event is to reconnect modern-day descendents of the 19th-century African American Exodusters (for the approximate years of 1850 –1910) from all of the Kansas colonies - with specific concentration on the Votaw Colony- with descendants of the white populace who assisted the Exodusters, and with the Exodusters  who chose not only to move out of the South, but to move out of the U.S. completely and settle in Liberia.


Special events and guests include:

• Concert (Wednesday night), banquet (Thursday night), and tour of Groves Center, one of the black colonies founded by
Junius G. Groves, Potato King of the World
(Thursday morning).

• Publish Your Own Book Seminar led by
Morris Turner - historian, author,
and Reconnection II
Planning Committee member.

• “The Making of Votaw Colony,” a short play by Peggy Stuntz – historian, author, and 
great niece of Daniel Votaw.

• Little Known History Facts of Color Seminar led by Leonard Wesley – retired history professor, currently with Peopling America
and Americans All Foundation.

• Storytelling Around the Fireplace: The Exoduster Storytelling Hour led by Nat Fitz - VCMI President. Invidivuals tell their
Exocuster stories.

• The Nicodemus Story with Veryl Switzer - professor, administrator, Director of
Earl Woods Golf Academy, and co-owner
of Nicodemus Four Co-op
(Nicodemus Colony descendent).

• The Genealogy Workshop Seminar led by Electra Price - professional genealogist
and Reconnection II
Planning Committee member.
 
• Life and Times of George Washington: Slave, Soldier, Farmer led by
Jimmy Johnson - professor at
Penn Valley Community College
in Missouri (descendent of
 Bloomington Settlement).

• The Liberian and African American Connection, History & Culture with
Selena Gennehma Hoffman - scholar and lecturer (descendent of 19th- century
African American colony in Liberia).


This event is free and open to the public.
The Groves Center Bus Tour is $5 per person, and the banquet is $15 per person.*
For more information, please send an e-mail to reconn2@comcast.net,
or call 510-620-0919.

*Reservations for the banquet are required. Deadline to RSVP is Monday, August 6, 2007. For reservations and inquiries about the banquet, please e-mail Tisa Anders at tianders2003@yahoo.com,
or call 303-399-1079.


See you in Kansas!