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Brown Helps Immortalize Names Beyond the Grave In 1831, a pioneering feminist speaker by the name of Maria Stewart asked her African American sisters, "What have you done to immortalize your names beyond the grave?" Four years later, twenty-six-year-old Susan Paul responded by publishing the first African American Biography: Memoir of James Jackson, The Attentive and Obedient Scholar, Who Died in Boston, October 31, 1833, aged Six Years and Eleven Months. Long forgotten, the book was rediscovered by Lois Brown, assistant professor of English at MHC--who was able to locate five extant copies in American research libraries--and published this year by Harvard University Press. The new edition, edited with an introduction by Brown, also includes photographs and documents from the period. Chronicling the life of a freeborn child in Boston, the narrative sheds new light on the spiritual and political education of African American children in the antebellum North. In an interview February 10 for Boston's NPR station, WBUR 90.9 ("Here and Now"), Brown discussed Jackson's participation in the juvenile abolitionist choir that Susan Paul organized in Boston in the 1830s. In a recent lecture at the Old South Meeting House in Boston, Brown talked further about slavery, children, and their contributions to the abolitionist movement.

Chronicling The Technology Conference The February 25 online issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education made reference to Anita Borg's recent talk at MHC. Borg, a computer engineer and a member of the research staff at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, spoke as part of The Information Technology Revolution: Women, Work, and Social Change a weekend conference organized by the College February 11-13. The article will appear in an upcoming issue of the Chronicle.