FreedomCon kicks off Friday at HVCC

TROY — Journalist and author Pamela Newkirk will present the opening address at the Underground Railroad Education Center’s FreedomCon 2022 conference 7 to 8:30 p.m. Friday, at Bulmer Telecommunications Center, Hudson Valley Community College, 80 Vandenburgh Ave.

The topic of her talk, which will also be presented virtually, will be “Locked In and Left Out: Ota Benga, The Diversity

Industry and the Power of Portrayals.”

Events Saturday will include workshops on social entrepreneurship by Black, Hispanic and other agents of change, the role of historical research and historical fiction in promoting social change, defense of democracy as the front line of freedom and antiracism, antiracist instruction in the classroom, environmental racism and teens as agents of change.

On Sunday, April 3, the center will hold an open house at the Stephen and

Harriet Myers Residence, 194 Livingston Ave., Albany, which was a regional center of Underground Railroad and Black abolitionist activity.

For more information, go to https://undergroundrailroadhistory.org/ freedomcon.