What is a Witness Stone? In this video you’ll follow Nate (one of our youth leaders) during a morning run in the town of Guilford, Connecticut. He’s looking for Witness Stones that have been placed in the ground where former enslaved people lived, worked, or worshiped to remind local residents that their community was shaped by former enslaved people.

We are a collaboration of churches from across three towns in southwestern Connecticut seeking to explore the history of slavery in colonial Connecticut and honor the humanity of the enslaved individuals who helped build our communities. In a program specially designed for us and led by The Witness Stones Project, Inc., youth gathered with community leaders for three sessions on Wednesday evenings in March 2023 to learn about slavery in New England.

With the assistance of local historian and Wilton archivist Julie Hughes, the Project provided us with local archival research, youth and leader development, a classroom curriculum, and public programming to help students discover and chronicle the local history of slavery. Youth and their leaders then met in April 2023 to compose narratives through story, music, drama, poetry, and/or video to tell the story of an enslaved person through these primary documents. We will come together for our final presentation. These will be presented along with the placement of a Witness Stone Memorial™ that will honor the enslaved individual we will focus on – where he lived, work, or worshipped – in a public ceremony to be held in June.

Funding has been provided by the sponsoring faith communities as part of acknowledging their complicity in issues of injustice towards those who were enslaved, many of whom had an integral part in the building and service to the early founders of their churches.