Saturday, November 8th from 11am to 4pm is the 5th annual ADOR which will feature guest speakers, special exhibits, and a family meal.

A Day of Remembrance (ADOR) is a free educational program commemorating those who were enslaved or sharecropped during the plantation era and post-emancipation era. The mission is to provide a safe educational space, that uplifts and preserves the plantation sites' history for present and future generations.

Program Schedule

  • 11:00am - Freedmen's Bureau Genealogy Presentation with Sharon Batiste Gillins
  • 12:00pm - Black Heritage Trees Project Presentation with Dr Alicia Odewale
  • 1:00pm - Ceremony and Family Meal with Chef Natalie Wright-Moore Clark
  • All Day - Video screening and self-guided tours of the site, archeology lab, and exhibitions

Follow us on social media for spotlights on the guest speakers and event highlights!

Presentation Descriptions

An Introduction to the Freedmen's Bureau with Sharon Batiste Gillins at 11am

The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, known as the Freedmen's Bureau, is an important tool for those researching enslaved ancestry because the records contain information that can help researchers reconstruct families and connect them to their enslaved past.  This workshop introduces the Freedmen's Bureau and how researchers can navigate the vast record collection to locate family history information as well as regional context, with specific emphasis on the southwest Texas coastal areas. 

““They Carry Our History”: Black Heritage Trees as Ancestral Sites of Remembrance” with Dr. Alicia Odewale at 12pm

Across the landscapes of the African Diaspora, certain trees have silently witnessed centuries of labor, resistance, freedom, and survival. This talk introduces the Black Heritage Tree Project, an effort to locate, map, and honor trees tied to Black history and memory. Centering on the Levi Jordan Plantation site, this presentation explores how Black Heritage Trees function as living monuments, rooted archives that preserve stories of enslavement and violence, but also Black kinship, love, and community resilience. Through archaeological evidence, oral histories, archival research, and digital mapping, we consider how engaging with these trees transform the plantation grounds from spaces of historical trauma into sites of remembrance, dialogue, and healing.

Speaker Bios

Portrait of a woman standing by a tree

Dr. Alicia Odewale, PhD African Diaspora Archaeologist | Educator | National Geographic Explorer | Founder, Archaeology Rewritten 

Dr. Alicia Odewale (Ware) is an African Diaspora archaeologist, educator, National Geographic Explorer, and restorative justice advocate whose work bridges generations, geographies, and disciplines across the Global African Diaspora. She is the founder and Executive Director of Archaeology Rewritten, an archaeological and educational consulting firm, and the co-director of major community-centered projects including the The Black Heritage Tree Project, Mapping Historical Trauma in Tulsa from 1921-2021, and the Estate Little Princess Archaeological Field School in St. Croix. 

Her research focuses on African heritage sites in the U.S. and Caribbean, especially Black Towns in the American West and Afro-Caribbean freedom sites, using trauma-informed, land-based archaeological methods rooted in restorative justice, anti-racist, and Black feminist approaches. Through heritage trees, maps, oral histories, archival records, sacred landscapes, and objects, Dr. Odewale demonstrates how tangible and intangible Black heritage is embedded in the natural and cultural world. 

Dr. Odewale holds undergraduate degrees from Westminster College and advanced degrees from the University of Tulsa (TU), where she became the first person of African descent to earn a PhD in anthropology from TU and later the first Black faculty member in TU’s Department of Anthropology. A descendant of educators, entrepreneurs, farmers, doctors, soldiers, and survivors of Black Towns such as Greenwood, OK aka Black Wall Street and Tuskegee, AL, she continues their legacy by reconnecting landscapes of Black freedom and liberation across the Diaspora. She has now also become widely known as a Beyoncé scholar, developing the viral course “Before Cowboy Carter: Black Towns, Black Freedom”, which links Black country music and popular culture to Black history and archaeology. Her work has been featured on multiple National Geographic platforms including Nat Geo Live, Explorer Classroom, Geography Awareness Week, HBCU + Disney on the Yard, 2892 Miles to Go, Edulab, and NGS social media. 

Dr. Odewale is also the co-creator of the Greenwood Archaeology Curriculum and the #TulsaSyllabus, an online educational resource on the long history of Black heritage, land ownership, and anti-Black violence in Oklahoma. Her research interests include archaeological methods for healing historical trauma, Black geographies, cultural resistance, heritage trees, and comparative collections-based research. 

Her work has received funding and recognition from the National Geographic Society, National Science Foundation, American Anthropological Association, the Society for American Archaeology, and the Society for Historical Archaeology, which awarded her the John L. Cotter Award in 2024. She currently serves as a visiting instructor for Black History Saturdays, an Executive Board Member of the Society of Black Archaeologists, and on the board of the Nat Geo Oklahoma Advisory Council.

Portrait of a woman in a museum

Sharon Batiste Gillins, Genealogist | Educator | Curator

Sharon Batiste Gillins has been actively involved in genealogical research and teaching for more than 30 years.  A retired college educator, she now uses her career experience to deliver lectures and presentations on a broad range of genealogical topics.  

Her research and teaching focus on strategies and methodologies for researching nineteenth century southern ancestry including the lives of enslaved persons, free-people-of-color and southern planters.   

She has taught at many of the country’s most recognized genealogy conferences and institutes including the Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research, Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy, Genealogical Research Institute of Pittsburg, Texas State Genealogical Society, Alabama State University Genealogy Colloquium, RootsTech and numerous regional genealogy societies and research groups.  Ms. Gillins is recognized for her research in Freedmen’s Bureau Records and is the author of several published articles on the subject.