Drawing inspiration from John Hope Franklin’s path-breaking 1947 study, the From Slavery to Freedom Lab seeks to examine the life and afterlives of slavery and emancipation, linking Duke University to the Global South. This lab experiments with ways to rethink slavery, particularly its cultural ramifications, in the face of legislative shifts and institutional maneuvers that obscure its persistent relevance. Drawing on the lab model, it hosts several vertically-integrated research projects to develop new ways to understand freedom as a historical experience, a representation, and a lived reality, privileging both the local area of Durham, North Carolina and the global permutations of transatlantic slavery and its emancipations.
The From Slavery to Freedom Lab is based at the Franklin Humanities Institute with support from the Mellon Foundation’s Global Engagement Fund in the Duke Office of Global Affairs.