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Oct. 27 Conversation on Race explores local “United States Colored Troops”
Talbot Family Network will open its 2026-27 Conversations on Race season Monday, Oct. 26, at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum with an exploration of how the stories communities preserve shape their understanding of history, race, and themselves.
The free program, titled “What Stories Do We Tell About Ourselves?” begins with an opportunity to explore the new Stories from the Shoreline exhibition in CBMM's Welcome Center from 4:30 to 5:45 p.m. Participants will then gather in the Van Lennep Auditorium from 5:45 to 7:30 p.m. for facilitated dialogue, a light meal, and refreshments.
The Welcome Center experience will give participants a shared starting point for considering how history is presented, remembered, and interpreted. The conversation will examine whose history is preserved, how familiar narratives shape a community’s identity, and what can be lost when collective memory leaves out painful history and the experiences of people who have been marginalized.
Jill Ferris, vice president of learning and innovation at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, said museums can help communities examine how shared narratives take shape.
“Every exhibition reflects choices about which objects, voices, and experiences help tell a larger story,” Ferris said. “By beginning in the Welcome Center, participants can explore those choices together and consider how a fuller understanding of the past can deepen our sense of connection to one another and to the Chesapeake Bay region.”
The program draws from Building the Next 250 Years, a community conversation framework developed by NxtLevel and the American Association for State and Local History as the United States approaches its 250th anniversary. The framework encourages communities to use history to consider who they are, how the past has shaped the present, and who they want to become.
Talbot Family Network’s Conversations on Race series will adapt those questions through a racial-equity lens. The 250th anniversary provides context for the discussion rather than a celebration theme, with a focus on community and national values, belonging and opportunity, and the distance between stated ideals and lived experience.
“The stories we inherit influence what we believe about our community and who belongs within its history,” said Nancy Andrew, executive director of Talbot Family Network. “Conversations on Race gives us room to listen to one another, examine what may be missing from the stories we know, and consider how a more honest understanding of the past can help us shape our future together.”
A second fall session, "What History Do We Remember?" will take place Monday, Dec. 7, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. in the Easton Meeting Room of the Talbot County Free Library.
Participants will view “Eroding History,” a documentary about two historic Black communities on Maryland’s Eastern Shore facing the loss of land and cultural history. A facilitated discussion will follow on race, place, memory, and what happens when the people, places, and stories holding a community’s history are at risk of being lost.
Each session stands on its own, and participants may attend either program or both. A light meal and refreshments will be provided at each session. Conversations on Race will continue in 2027, with Shore Lit returning as a program partner in January.
The Conversations on Race series is free and open to the public. Advance registration for the October session is required at bit.ly/oct26convo.
Talbot Family Network serves as Talbot County’s Local Management Board and was established by the state of Maryland to change the way services are provided to children and families. TFN identifies priorities and targets resources for the jurisdiction’s communities, coordinates child and family services, and administers state resources. Local Management Boards improve coordination across state agencies and empower local stakeholders to help drive local priorities.
