Throughout the year, Old North Illuminated hosts authors, professors, and other experts for Speaker Series events. In anticipation of the upcoming 250th anniversary of Old North Church’s famous lantern signal in 2025, this year’s Speaker Series will include talks that focus on revolutions — their origins, their societal transformations, and their complex legacies. We hope you’ll join us.

Our 2024 Speaker Series events are brought to you in part by Hub Town Tours.

From Queer Puritans to Marriage Equality in the Commonwealth

From the moment the Separatists and Puritans made contact with the Indigenous People of what is now known as Massachusetts, the Commonwealth has had a history steeped in revolution. With the establishment of Boston, Governor John Winthrop proclaimed it “a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people will be upon us.” While it is prized for its historic social and political impacts, Boston is still responsible for spearheading revolutionary change in modern times for the LGBTQ+ community, with the eyes of the country upon it.

In this online talk, historian and author Russ Lopez will discuss how a state that was formed on strong puritanical ideologies became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage. Discussing some of the lesser-known histories of Massachusetts’ past, Lopez shows us that there has always been an LGBTQ+ community in the Commonwealth, just not always in plain sight.

From Queer Puritans to Marriage Equality in the Commonwealth

Thursday, April 25, 2024
Live on Zoom
7:00 – 8:30pm
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Silent No More: Women in the Haitian Revolution

In 1791, the eruption of the Haitian Revolution shook the world. It was the only revolt of enslaved people to abolish slavery and create a free and independent Black nation in the Americas. Enslaved women represented nearly half of colonial Haiti’s plantation populations and performed much of the same physical labor as their male counterparts. However, few women are identified in archival records as having taken part in the revolutionary struggle. In this history talk, Dr. Crystal Nicole Eddins will draw on African and African diaspora perspectives to shed light on the ways that enslaved women may have contributed to the revolution for freedom and liberation.

Dr. Crystal Nicole Eddins is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Pittsburgh. She is the author of Rituals, Runaways, and the Haitian Revolution: Collective Action in the African Diaspora.

Silent No More: Women in the Haitian Revolution