Catching UP!

 Jack's News!

  by your Official Bookstore Cat, 

and Gossip Columnist.

Hi Folks,

Author Terry L White sent the following reminder, to us:

Harriet Tubman Essay Contest deadline Jan. 31, 2017 !

So remind any students you know to get busy...

2017 National Underground Railroad Conference

On the Edge of Freedom:
Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad in the Borderlands2017 National Underground Railroad Conference
2017 Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Conference

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: January 31, 2017

The National Park Service, National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom (NTF) Program and the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Conference will co-host a joint conference in 2017, in honor of the grand opening of the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor Center in Church Creek, Maryland. The conference, "On the Edge of Freedom: Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad in the Borderlands," will be held in Cambridge, Maryland, May 18-21, 2017.

This conference will explore all aspects of the Underground Railroad in borderlands—both literal and figurative. For a more complete discussion of the theme, see the attached "Historical Context Statement." The Conference Program Committee welcomes proposals from a wide variety of scholars, community researchers, site stewards, educators, interpreters, and others interested in Underground Railroad history. Some ideas for presentation topics include, but are not limited to:

• Explore the contours of personal borderlands between black and white families in slave states that affected their understanding and accommodation of slavery and freedom
• How did knowledge and ability to negotiate and manipulate borderlands facilitate or obstruct escape?
• Who were the members of local communities who secretly crossed back and forth between local, regional, and national borderlands?
• How did trade, travel, and commerce facilitate the crossing of borderlands?
• Contrast black communities on opposite sides of borderlands
• How was the Underground Railroad different in the borderland regions, both in the North and South?
• What factors influenced the Underground Railroad, slavery, and freedom in borderlands?
• How did international borderland regions compare to internal (to the US) borderlands?
• How did the boundaries between freedom and enslavement affect relationships between enslaved and free blacks?
• Kidnappings and reverse Underground Railroad
• Creating and maintaining freedom and communities in borderlands
• Transnationalism and the Underground Railroad

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Accepted presenters can expect to receive notification by February 15, 2017

For more information, please visit our website: www.nps.gov/ugrr or contact:

Diane Miller, National Program Manager
Network to Freedom
National Park Service
4068 Golden Hill Road
Church Creek, Maryland 21622
Phone: 410-221-2290, x 1111
E-mail: diane_miller@nps.gov

Or

Terry Nield or Ellen Mousin
tubman.conference@gmail.com

Also Payroll for the final quarter of 2016 is, Done, Done, Done!

And  if you want to learn more about Harriet Tubman, try this one.

or even this one

As for here at home, 

Payroll  is Done, Done, Done!

Paypal was done last week and the checks are in the mail. 

Now Arline can go to work on the corporate taxes and once she finishes that she may become less grumpy.  I swear she threw an aluminum pie plate toward the coffee table last night and it landed on its edge, bounced off, and chased my poor little baby sister all the way into the dining room!

PLEASE don't YOU forget to send me news of any personal appearances, signings and so on... so I'll have some gossip to pass on next week. 

Just send an e-mail to arline@mail.com with 

 "News for Jack" 

 in the subject line, and

I'll make sure it shows up here for all the world to see!