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Honoring James Mars in ceremony May 1

SALISBURY — Salisbury School, the Church of Christ, Congregational UCC of Norfolk and the Norfolk Historical Society will place a Witness Stone to honor James Mars on May 1, the day the State of Connecticut proclaimed James Mars Day. The Witness Stone will be placed in front of UCC Norfolk to recognize Mars’s dedication to that parish.  

This milestone is a major move for Salisbury School students enrolled in the Searching for Slavery class and their Norfolk partners, whose mission is to educate others on this forgotten local history, to rewrite the stories that have been told incorrectly, and to uncover lives that have been ignored or buried.  

After collaborating with state Rep. Maria Horn (D-64), Gov. Ned Lamont has designated May 1 as James Mars Day with a signed a State Proclamation honoring Mars. The Witness Stone ceremony will begin at 2 p.m. at the UCC Church, 12 Village Green in Norfolk and will include Congressman Jahana Hayes (D-5), state Sen. Kevin Witkos, state Rep. Horn, the president of Berkshire Chapter NAACP Dennis Powell, and the Rev. Cleo Graham of Faith Congregational Church (formerly the Talcott Street Church), the church Mars helped found.  

To learn more about Witness Stones, go to https://witnessstonesproject.org. 

At Salisbury School, “Searching for Slavery in Connecticut” has been taught throughout the 2020-21 school year. The class project has been searching for the enslaved around the Northwestern Corner of Connecticut and in the Berkshires. The students have used state and town records, consulted local historians and authors, and visited sites that have allowed them to, quite literally, search for slavery. 

In addition to James Mars, other students in the class have been researching topics and people related to the buried or ignored Black history of the Upper Housatonic River Valley.  

See more at @findingslavery on Instagram and @slaverynorth on Twitter. 

— Rhonan Mokriski

Lakeville Journal

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