Welcome to Historic Northampton
CURRENT EXHIBITION
Slavery and Freedom in Northampton,
1654 to 1783
1654 to 1783
For at least 129 years, slavery was part of the fabric of everyday life in Northampton. At least 50 enslaved individuals lived here from the town’s English settlement in 1654 until 1783 when slavery was abolished in Massachusetts.
This exhibit features 34 life-sized silhouettes of men, women, and children who were enslaved. On each silhouette are details about individual lives based upon information gleaned from historic documents. Their histories reveal aspects of enslavement and examples of freedom, and resistance to oppression.
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Exhibit Information
Dates
Open through December 11, 2026
Hours
Wednesday - Sunday
11 am to 4 pm Where
Historic Northampton Main Gallery
46 Bridge Street Northampton, MA 01060 Admission
By Donation |
Something We Said: Richard Pryor, a Notorious Word, and Me
A Conversation With Author Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor
Wednesday, July 15, 2026 at 6:30 pm
At The Northampton Center for the Arts @ 33 Hawley, Flex Space
SOLD OUT
A Conversation With Author Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor
Wednesday, July 15, 2026 at 6:30 pm
At The Northampton Center for the Arts @ 33 Hawley, Flex Space
SOLD OUT
Cover of Something We Said: Richard Pryor, a Notorious Word, and Me by Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor, published by 37 Ink, an imprint of Simon and Schuster
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Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor, daughter of iconic comedian Richard Pryor and a professor at Smith College, will speak about her new book, Something We Said: Richard Pryor, a Notorious Word, and Me.
Recently chosen as one of the New York Times’ “Nonfiction Everyone Will Be Reading This Summer”, Pryor’s book is partly a memoir about growing up the Black Jewish daughter of Richard Pryor, but also an exploration of the historical and contemporary use of the N-word. Pryor is considered one of the leading scholars about the history of the N-word, one of the most perplexing words in the American lexicon and a word her father helped put on the pop culture map. The conversation will be moderated by I’Maya Gibbs, a PhD candidate in the W.E.B. Dubois Department of Afro-American Studies at UMass Amherst. A Q&A and book signing will follow. |
Preregistration is required | Sliding Scale Admission: $10-35
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Acknowledging Indigenous History
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Here, we acknowledge that we stand on Indigenous land, inhabited by Native American people for roughly 11,000 years, since the glaciers receded. This place that we now call Northampton was known to Native people as Nonotuck or Norwottuck. Nonotuck homelands stretched across both sides of the Kwinitekw (now called the Connecticut River), including the present-day towns of Amherst, Hadley, Hatfield, South Hadley, Northampton, and Easthampton.
Nonotuck people were closely connected, through trade, diplomacy, and kinship, to other Native communities in the region: the Quaboag in present-day Brookfield; the Agawam in present-day Springfield; the Woronoco in present-day Westfield; the Pocumtuck in present-day Deerfield; and the Sokoki in present-day Northfield. During the early 1600s, these Native groups engaged in reciprocal trade relations with English colonial settlers and with other Native nations. |
By the late 1600s, however, the pressures of colonial warfare forced many Native families to relocate, taking shelter in other Native territories. We offer condolences for the Nonotuck people who were forced to leave their homeland, while also offering gratitude for the Native communities that took them in.
Despite the loss of land due to colonial settlement, a number of Native nations have persisted across the territory that we now call “New England.” These include: the Nipmuc to the East; the Wampanoag and Narragansett to the Southeast; the Mohegan, Pequot, and Schaghticoke to the South; the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican to the West; and the Abenaki to the North, among others. Recognizing that the entirety of the North American continent constitutes Indigenous homelands, we affirm, honor, and respect the sovereignty of these and hundreds of other Indigenous Native American and First Nations peoples who survive today. |
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