coverage of a symposium on abraham lincoln's life and legacy on c-span3, "american history tv". for 48 hours every weekend we feature people and events that document the american story, after this break, we're back live with the next speaker, university of illinois springfield lincoln scholar, michael. he will talk about lincoln and african-americans. we take you to north carolina's winston-salem. are here at state phillips african moravian church in winston-salem, north carolina where c-span is learning about local history. we learn about the hidden town project in old salem. projectidden town really stems from early research at old salem, about the narrative of the enslaved. old salem is interesting because it was one of the first history

sites in north america to start to interpret the african-american narrative, it started in the late 80's, took up steam in the 90's. there was a lot of research done about the enslaved population. in december of 2016 we started a project called, hidden town. the reason for hidden town, because, in the 1990's when they started to do restoration of illip's, here in old salem, they found under the steps, slave tombstones that were taken out of the burial ground and hidden under the steps. when they did for the restoration work, they found some of these tombstones had been stacked and were holding up rotten floor joists.

this notion of being hidden is a dual concept. one is, literally the material viansre of the afro-mora was hidden under the floor but also even when the and slaves were living here -- when the slaves were living here in urban slavery, there was this hidden society within this moravian world. the relationship of human bondage to the moravians is fairly complex. that is because they believed them to be of equal spiritual status and in fact at the beginning, when the moravians moved to north carolina, they had great ilog and discussion and discourse about slavery -- discussiongue and

and discourse about slavery and human bondage and they did not go comfortable about it. you're looking at this unique quality of urban slavery that transitions from an uncomfortable position to fully embracing this issue of human bondage. traditionally, old salem has talked mostly about the kind of white moravian history. really delved into the scholarship, but it was not fully integrated into the town. if you did not go to a certain section of old salem, which is the saint philip's historic district, where the church is, you would not have gotten a full sense of how integrated the population of the an enslaved was. >> this site has been very important to african-americans. we consider it the touchstone of the african-american experience in winston-salem.

it is the saint phillips african more avian church nor in as the -- saint philip's african moravian church. this site is culturally, historically significant and very part of the salem story. 1861 largerw in the ,acility for the congregation at saint phillips. it originally started in a log this larger23, building accommodated 200 members. they had the traditional seating that would have been early on with this congregation and the home church congregation where women sit on the right side and men sit on the left side. inside this building, we

continue to talk about how life would involve with this congregation. we have to go back to the log church in order to elaborate how most shutters came about, because the congregation was the funds would fund that building and then when they were moving to this building, the church helped pay for the building to be built. there also was the hands of be a part would also of building the building. -- we know early on through documentation, there have been places enslaved people would live throughout the town even though they had their own personal space set up for them known as negro's quarters. this has been evolving into the hidden town project, so that the community can understand, during

the slavery period there were certain facilities that insulated people that would function in the town, before they could to some degree live in the town. >> one of the main goals for hidden town is to locate every single dwelling within salem, the historic district. 2016, since december of we estimate we have over 40 distinct slave dwellings sprinkled throughout the district. people of were more bondage living inside of the houses, basements. we are also finding out about individuals for whom slavery was something that they bought themselves out of. peter oliver is a fantastic example. enslaved man who eventually

worked as an apprentice as a potter and purchased his freedom and lived outside of town, and 30 hidden town project we just theted -- and through hidden town project we just located where that was. another individual, bethy. we know nothing else about her. she was a domestic enslaved person, and that she lived in the attic. we have gone up there and found the room we believe was her spot. we are sitting in an upstairs room of the historic tavern in salem. why this is important, why we are sitting in here and talking, we now know that an enslaved family or several lived up here while they help run -- helped run the tavern. the tavern was a place that all the strangers, they were called,

non-moravians, visitors to salem, would stay in the tavern. slaved individuals to help them with hospitality, cooking, cleaning, welcoming, taking care of the horses. when we found that out, right away, this room was used primarily as a storage room, we emptied it, stabilized it. it is not in a restore condition at this point. , theought in these pews reason why these are important, they are from saint phillips african church. thee are the very pews slaves were sitting in when they were told they were free. >> 1865, once the congregation, they announced emancipation to this congregation. individuals, would become free. because of that time, those

individuals had no property ownership or property. there were some free people but the majority still had no access to owning their own land or they never had resources they could move out, during that time of freedom. many would stay here in the area and they would be endangered in order -- they would be indentu red in order to earn wages, so they could have the ability to purchase land. that would take a while. who were these people? how did they function on a day-to-day basis? i think that is important because we can always, have the structures that will probably last longer. interacthey move and in various aspects? through the changes of history and how that affected their lives?

the main key for me and many others at this, let's get a good snippet of who those individuals and what part they played into the community functioning? there are many africans, people who spoke various languages, playing an important part in how interaction happen with travelers that passed through the town. that came to the tavern because that was your first interacting. goal again, is to find who these people were. what their lives were. where it led. we are also not just interested in before civil war and back, we are taking the hidden town project through the civil war into reconstruction. into the jim crow era. into the present day. what we are already finding, slavery in salem started to really point to what we have today as