Ancestral Bridges

06/13/2026

Thank you. Monty & Kaliis!

Join us tomorrow, June 14, 12 - 3 PM

📍12 PM - West Cemetery, Triangle Street
📍 1 PM - Ancestral Bridges, 29A Cottage Street, Amherst, MA

For 413 Gives, we talk to the Elizabeth Freeman Center. Plus, we find out about Amherst Black history with Ancestral Bridges ahead of their Juneteenth celebration.

06/11/2026

✨WHERE WE WALK | A Short Film

The Ancestral Bridges living archive & museum serves as a mirror to the dominant local narrative that frames the establishment of Amherst’s Black community as primarily a 1970s development, with a few others brought to town long ago by Amherst College and UMass Amherst as first students, faculty, and custodians. These narratives, rooted in settler archives, lack connection to the community and erase Amherst's Black and Afro-Indigenous roots that predate both our town’s and nation's foundations. Yet, our stories are alive and carry forward against all odds, reflecting the truth found in towns, cities, and states across the nation and beyond.

Ancestral Bridges is not named for our Bridges family line; it represents connection, bridges, to people and places often unseen, even those unjustly deemed extinct.

➡️ Join us on Sunday, June 14, for the 6th Annual Juneteenth legacy celebration. This year's event includes a spiced-up presentation by the Brace 54th reenactors and a special proclamation at West Cemetery from Reedy Chapel ÂME in Galveston, TX, where members of the 5th Cavalry, including our Amherst soldiers, stood to read General Order No. 3 during the time we now celebrate as Juneteenth.

Visit https://www.ancestral-bridges.org/events for more.

🎬 Directed by Ginelle Bamfo
🎞️ Cinematography and editing by Sheeya Jayabharathi
🔊 On-site sound by Callie Chen Schultz
✍🏾 Produced, written, and narrated by Christina Miles

"WHERE WE WALK" | A Short Film by Ancestral BridgesA short film ...

06/10/2026

06/09/2026

05/24/2026

💌💌💌
Ancestral Bridges 6th Annual Juneteenth Legacy Celebration

Sunday, June 14, 2026
12 PM West Cemetery
1 PM Ancestral Bridges

The Homecoming

One hundred and sixty-one years ago, Black and Afro-Indigenous Amherst residents who served in the Union army Massachusetts 5th Cavalry began their journey home, on foot, from Texas after enforcing General Order No. 3:

Samuel Freeman, Jarvis Jackson, Winsor Jackson, William Jennings, Howard Paxen, Joseph Solomon, Lorenzo Sugland, Charles Thompson, Christopher Thompson, Henry Thompson, John Thompson, Charles Turner, Charles Waters, and William Williamson.

They followed their uncles, brothers, cousins, and community who served in the Union army Massachusetts 54th Regiment:

Jason Chaplin, Charles Finnemore, Sanford Jackson, Francis Jennings, William Jennings, Alexander Taylor, and James Thompson.

On June 14, we will acknowledge and celebrate them and many others, known and unknown, with a long-overdue homecoming.

✨ Join us as the universal language of music flows from an invigorated remembrance and Proclamations at West Cemetery to a homecoming at Ancestral Bridges featuring Avery Sharpe with a Juneteenth jazz set, homecoming stations with community partners, lunch, an open house at Ancestral Bridges featuring new Revolutionary Response exhibits with Kamil Peters & more.

🪕🎷This year, we welcome Pam Tillis to share her father Dr. Fred Tillis' (1930-2020) connection to Amherst's Gil Roberts (1896-2002) that spans from UMass to Amherst College to backyard improv sessions at the home of Dudley Bridges Sr. on Amity Street in Amherst, MA, in the 1970s, and back to Reedy Chapel ÂME in Galveston, TX, where the 5th Cavalry stood as General Order No. 3 was read in 1865. Including Charles Thompson whose real talk letter sent from Texas to his sister Mary in Amherst is on exhibition at Ancestral Bridges.

🚕 Transportation to and from West Cemetery and Ancestral Bridges will be provided from the Amherst High School parking lot and the far back parking lot at Ancestral Bridges.

🆓 ♥️ This is a free, descendant-led, community event brought forward with community partners.

ancestral-bridges.org

05/15/2026

💌💌💌
Ancestral Bridges 6th Annual Juneteenth Legacy Celebration

Sunday, June 14, 2026
12 PM West Cemetery
1 PM Ancestral Bridges

The Homecoming

One hundred and sixty-one years ago, Black and Afro-Indigenous Amherst residents who served in the Union army Massachusetts 5th Cavalry began their journey home, on foot, from Texas after enforcing General Order No. 3:

Samuel Freeman, Jarvis Jackson, Winsor Jackson, William Jennings, Howard Paxen, Joseph Solomon, Lorenzo Sugland, Charles Thompson, Christopher Thompson, Henry Thompson, John Thompson, Charles Turner, Charles Waters, and William Williamson.

They followed their uncles, brothers, cousins, and community who served in the Union army Massachusetts 54th Regiment:

Jason Chaplin, Charles Finnemore, Sanford Jackson, Francis Jennings, William Jennings, Alexander Taylor, and James Thompson.

On June 14, we will acknowledge and celebrate them and many others, known and unknown, with a long-overdue homecoming.

✨ Join us as the universal language of music flows from an invigorated remembrance and Proclamations at West Cemetery to a homecoming at Ancestral Bridges featuring Avery Sharpe with a Juneteenth jazz set, homecoming stations with community partners, lunch, an open house at Ancestral Bridges featuring new Revolutionary Response exhibits with Kamil Peters & more.

🪕🎷This year, we welcome Pam Tillis to share her father Dr. Fred Tillis' (1930-2020) connection to Amherst's Gil Roberts (1896-2002) that spans from UMass to Amherst College to backyard improv sessions at the home of Dudley Bridges Sr. on Amity Street in Amherst, MA, in the 1970s, and back to Reedy Chapel ÂME in Galveston, TX, where the 5th Cavalry stood as General Order No. 3 was read in 1865. Including Charles Thompson whose real talk letter sent from Texas to his sister Mary in Amherst is on exhibition at Ancestral Bridges.

🚕 Transportation to and from West Cemetery and Ancestral Bridges will be provided from the Amherst High School parking lot and the far back parking lot at Ancestral Bridges.

🆓 ♥️ This is a free, descendant-led, community event brought forward with community partners.

Visit ancestral-bridges.org for more information

05/15/2026

04/27/2026

04/22/2026

Thanks for visiting Katie, Lily, and Ben.🌺

See you tomorrow for Amherst Arts Night Plus with art by Justin Beatty, Dr. Shirley Jackson Whitaker, Elizabeth James Perry, Anika Lopes, Douglas Miles, Kamil Peters, & more.

Amherst Arts Night Plus
Thursday, April 23, 5PM - 8 PM
Amherst Business Improvement District