WHO WE ARE

Bristol Middle Passage Port Marker Project, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) community organization based in Bristol, RI. With a diverse board of directors, we are working to erect a memorial to acknowledge the history of Bristol’s participation in the Transatlantic Human Trade and this trade’s effects on African and Indigenous peoples. Our memorial will be a place of remembrance, reconciliation, healing and education for our town and its visitors and a prominent acknowledgement of the role of this trade in both our town’s and our nation’s history.

In this project we join many other communities across the Atlantic and Gulf coasts in remembering the role that their communities played in the Transatlantic Human Trade and we are collaborating with the national Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project as well as the Newport Middle Passage Ceremony and Port Marker project. This effort is also included under the UNESCO Routes of Enslaved Peoples Project.

Our project has received the support of the Bristol Town Council which has designated a prominent site in Independence Park on the Bristol waterfront on which our memorial will be erected.

Detailed financial and organizational information can be found in our profile on GuideStar.

The Bristol Middle Passage Port Marker Project seeks to acknowledge the history and memory of Bristol’s participation in slavery and the Transatlantic Human Trade and its resounding effects on African and Indigenous peoples by erecting a memorial to honor those affected by this history and their contributions to our nation, and to serve as a site for educating people on this history and for hosting reconciliation and healing ceremonies.

Dr. Sherri V. Cummings

Dr. Cummings is jointly appointed in History and Africana Studies at Rhode Island College. Her research interests include Africa and the Black Atlantic, Early African American History and Africana Intellectual History.

A native of New York City, Dr. Cummings earned her Ph.D. from Brown University where her research focused on the enslavement of African girls in the British Atlantic during the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries.

Peter Dorfman

University of California Santa Cruz and Boston University grad. Former software engineering leader. Has studied and taught philosophy, which remains a strong interest. Recent arrival in the area, loves Bristol, appreciates the historical and cultural significance that the town and its region hold for our country, especially the long history of the Native American peoples and the little-known facts of our region's involvement in the international slave trade.

Charles Edwards

Graduate of Yale University, BA and Suffolk University - Sawyer Business School, Executive MBA. Recently retired business operations leader at ADT with over 40 years of extensive global experience managing organizations in diverse industries and markets. Served as college recruiter and host manager for ADT’s Supply Chain Leadership Development Program. Co-chaired ADT’s Black Business Employee Resource Group (BERG) employee recruitment committee. Recipient of several business certifications including Six Sigma Green Belt and former member of New England Minority Purchasing Council Board of Directors. Guest speaker on Strategic Sourcing best practices at Howard University School of Business in Washington DC. Currently residing in Warren and avid history enthusiast of African American and Indigenous people diaspora.

Mattie Edwards-Kemp, Vice President

Director of Diversity, Equity and Justice, Pennfield School, Portsmouth RI. Mattie has been with Pennfield since 1995. She earned undergraduate degrees from the University of Tennessee and Salve Regina University and received a M.Ed. in educational leadership from Rhode Island College. Mattie has served as Pennfield School’s Curriculum Coordinator, Head of Upper School, Assistant Head of School, Associate Head of School, while continuing to teach World Cultures. She has served as an adjunct professor at Salve Regina University and Roger Williams University. She served on the Board of Trustees for the Martin Luther King Community Center for ten years and is currently Vice President of the Bristol Middle Passage Port Marker Project. 

Bernard K. Freamon, President

Professor Freamon was hired by Roger Williams University School of Law as Director of its ground-breaking Race and the Foundations of American Law Program in July of 2022. A Professor of Law Emeritus at Seton Hall Law School, he has visited on a number of law faculties around the world. He recently taught an innovative course on slavery and human trafficking, based in Zanzibar, Tanzania, and sponsored by the Global Education Program at George Mason University. He serves as President of BMPPMP.

Susan Maloney

Lifelong volunteer who has received numerous awards for her service. Educated at Trinity College, VT. Served on the Boards of: Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk (where the Susan C. Maloney Marine Science Lab was named in her honor); Junior League of Stamford-Norwalk; Connecticut Association for Children with Learning Disabilities; and Mount Hope Farm (Membership Chair). Civic organizations include Voices for Bristol and Friends of Historic Bristol. Presently Fundraising Chair for BMPPMP and Co-Chair of Bristol Blooms.

James A. Manchester

James A. (“Jim”) Manchester, born, raised, and schooled (graduated in 1966 from Colt Memorial High School) in Bristol, R.I., is also a graduate of URI (BA English) and RIC (MAT English Teaching). He served in the US Army from 1970 to 1972. He taught at Providence Country Day School from 1974 to 1987 and at East Providence Middle School and later East Providence High School from 1987 to 2008, instructing in English, ESL, and Theatre Arts, including having directed a number of plays, both musical and non-musical.

For a number of years in the 1980’s and 1990’s, he served on the board of The Bristol Theatre Company, acting and directing as well as doing holiday readings at Blithewold and Linden Place. He also acted with several small professional and community theatre groups, doing several tv commercials, voice-overs, and recording a number of audiobooks. Jim also sat on the board of the now unfortunately defunct Fatima High School in Warren, RI.

In retirement, Jim enjoys traveling, gardening, playing piano, and (when the muse visits) writing poems, some of which have been published in local journals. In the 2010s Jim and a friend helped establish a Shakespeare Reading group that is still going strong at the Rogers Free Library in Bristol

Stephen T. O’Neill, Secretary

Fairfield University and Fordham Law grad. Practiced law in Providence for 40 years; retired 2015. Retired Fellow, American College of Trust and Estate Counsel. U.S. Army Ordnance Officer 1967-69. Former board member: RI Foundation Advisory Board; Veterans Memorial Auditorium Preservation Association; Looking Glass Theater; RI Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts (Founder); RI Lung Association; Barrington Youth Soccer Association; Barrington HS Parents’ Association (Co-Chair). East Bay RI resident since 1976. Currently serves as Board Secretary and chairs BMPPMP’s Governance Committee. 

Ayo Osimboni

Ayo has a master’s degree in finance, a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and an associate degree in architecture. Over 32 years experience building major infrastructure projects such as highways, roadways, bridges, electric and gas utility transmission and distribution lines, substations and gate stations. Appointed by the Governor to serve on the board of RI engineers in 2022. Lifelong advisory and founding member of Oasis International, a local organization whose goal is to educate, promote cultural diversity, financial literacy and positive social changes in our communities, especially assisting students from low-income families prepare for college through after-school educational programs and college scholarships. Currently a managing partner in an owner’s rep consulting firm that specializes in project management, construction management, construction inspection and general construction management services.

Michael Proto

Lifelong Bristolian. Retired public employee/union negotiator. Frequent contributor to editorial pages of local newspaper The Bristol Phoenix, writing mostly about social justice, nondiscrimination and other liberal progressive causes, as well as local government issues. A.A.S. in Fire Science, Community College Of Rhode Island; B.S. in Public Administration, Roger Williams University; M.S. in Labor Relations, University Of Rhode Island. 

Tracey Dancing Star Brown

Tracey Brown resides in Barrington. She is the Director of the Apple Blossom Early Learning Center in Barrington. She is a direct descendant of the Massasoit Ousa Mequin and his son and successor Metacomet, nicknamed in the 17th century by English settlers as King Philip. She is Sachem of the Pokanoket Tribe. In that capacity she gives counsel to her father the Pokanoket Sagamore and manages day-to-day tribal affairs.

Donna Celone

Donna Celone graduated in 1979 from Lesley College in Cambridge, MA, with a BS in Education, and Rhode Island College in 1993, where she earned her Master of Education degree. She enjoyed a wonderful 30-year career teaching 4th grade in the Bristol-Warren Regional School Department.

During those years, she participated in the Sense of Pride program, helping children discover the joy of giving back to their town and taking pride in where they live. Since retiring in 2019, she has remained active in education as a substitute teacher in Bristol and as a volunteer at Trinity Repertory Company in Providence.

Donna's love of education has never waned — which prompted her interest in contributing her time to the Bristol Middle Passage Port Marker Project. She looks forward to contributing to its mission of educating the community and honoring an important and historically unaddressed part of local history.

Holly Fulton

Holly Fulton has degrees in the performing arts, French, foreign language teaching, and psychology. She has been a secretary, caterer, diversity trainer, actor, interpersonal skills facilitator, consultant, and an educator. She is a DeWolf family descendant who appeared in the film “Traces of the Trade” and has for years facilitated film-related discussions and workshops. She served 2 years on the board of Coming to the Table and co-founded the Bristol Middle Passage Project in 2013. Holly strongly believes in the power of acknowledging history for healing purposes.

Victoria Johnson

Victoria Johnson, a native Newporter, in 1997 became the first African American female principal of a High School in Rhode Island, at Rogers High in Newport. For 41 years, Mrs. Johnson served as a vital member of the education field. She holds a master's degree in administration and education and a Bachelor of Science in health, physical education, and recreation. Both as a teacher and administrator, throughout her career Mrs. Johnson was dedicated to providing students with knowledge and skills that would result in productive citizenship and lifelong love for learning. She oversaw curriculum development, instructional delivery, health and physical education courses, and collaborated with parents. She was honored as National Kellogg’s Women’s Coach of the Year, has received the Better Than Ever Principal's Award, the Cape Verdean Award, and the George T. Downing Award, and was named an NAACP Role Model. Along with Jamestown RI Historian Peter Fay she founded the Newport Middle Passage Port Marker Project.

Elizabeth Sturges Llerena 

Elizabeth Sturges Llerena is an artist and art educator whose work aims to heal historic wounds by raising awareness about the present-day impacts of slavery and white privilege. Many years of experience as a multi-lingual art teacher in the Boston and New York City public schools, and participation in the Emmy-nominated PBS documentary Traces of the Trade, in which she is featured, inform her work. She is a member of the New York City chapter of Coming to the Table and co-founded the Bristol Middle Passage Project in 2013.

Charles Roberts

Charles Roberts is the Founder and Executive Director of Rhode Island Slave History Medallions, Newport, RI, a nonprofit, placed-based statewide education program recognized by the RI General Assembly in House Resolution (2020-H 7643). He is a native Rhode Islander whose family has lived in Newport since 1889. He earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, attended Black Studies classes at City College University of New York, and studied at the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences at CBS, New York City.  A talented visual artist, he pursued graphic design at the RI School of Design and continued developing his pastel paintings, winning a juried show award at the Spring Bull Gallery, Newport, 2014. His work was chosen for exhibition in the 2018 and 2019 Annual Juried Members Show at the Newport Art Museum. He has also exhibited in group shows at the New Jersey State House, Trenton; Newport Art Museum’s Coleman Center; DeBlois Gallery, Middletown; and the Hope Street Gallery in Bristol. His background also includes teaching art and TV production at the Chad Science Academy in Newark, NJ (1994-5), extensive travels throughout Europe and Africa, and concert production/promotion with Warner Atlantic Elektra Records in NY (1979-93) working with artists like James Brown, Chaka Kahn, Gladys Knight, Run DMC, Johnny Pacheco and others. He produced gospel concerts at RI’s Veterans Memorial Auditorium (2002) and Providence Performing Arts Center (2006), while managing and producing the popular First Night Newport, a city-wide New Year’s Eve Celebration of the Arts. (2000-2009).