The Center for the Study of Global Slavery (CSGS) researches and interprets slavery and its afterlives, revealing its deep global connections and impact as well as recognizing the resistance and resilience of people of African descent across the diaspora.

Built upon international collaboration, the CSGS provides an understanding of slavery as a shared human history beyond region, nation, and race – as something crucial to understanding our local communities, national identities, and global societies in the 21st century.

Art in the Wake: Reckoning and Re-membering
Event

Art in the Wake: Reckoning and Re-membering

Join us on May 19th-20th for a two-day symposium to build new visions for Black freedom, reclamation and healing for our present and future.

Register about Art in the Wake: Reckoning and Re-membering

Core Staff

Ivie Orobaton, B.A.

Ivie Orobaton is a Researcher and Exhibition Specialist for the Center for the Study of Global Slavery at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture actively working on the “In Slavery’s Wake” exhibition project. She holds a B.A. from the College of William and Mary with a double major in History and Anthropology. Her undergraduate research was centered around health and racism; her Honors The...
Full Bio about Ivie Orobaton, B.A.

Johanna Obenda, M.A.

Johanna Obenda is a Researcher and Exhibition Development Specialist for the Center for the Study of Global Slavery. She is the primary developer for the exhibition “In Slavery’s Wake: Making Black Freedom” opening in 2024 in NMAAHC’s special exhibitions gallery. Johanna earned a B.A. in History from the University of Alabama and a M.A. in Public Humanities from Brown University where she was the Graduate Fellow at the Cent...
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Gabrielle Miller, M.A.

Gabrielle Miller is a Program Specialist and Archaeologist for the Center for the Study of Global Slavery at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. In the CSGS Gabrielle liaises with various departments across the NMAAHC as well as with national and international partners outside of the Smithsonian with a specific focus related to CSGS collaborations throughout the program’s initiatives...
Full Bio about Gabrielle Miller, M.A.

Kate McMahon, Ph.D.

Dr. Kate McMahon works as a Museum Specialist at the Center for the Study of Global Slavery at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture in Washington, D.C. She works on the three collaborative CSGS initiatives: the Slave Wrecks Project, the Global Curatorial Project/ “In Slavery’s Wake” and the Slave Voyages Consortium. She received her B.A. in Art History and M.A. in American and New England St...
Full Bio about Kate McMahon, Ph.D.

Paul Gardullo, Ph.D.

Dr. Paul Gardullo is an historian and a curator at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. He directs the NMAAHC’s Center for the Study of Global Slavery, which hosts or co-convenes three international collaborative initiatives, the Slave Wrecks Project and the Global Curatorial Project and Slave Voyages. Paul has over twenty-five years of experience professionally and and...
Full Bio about Paul Gardullo, Ph.D.

 

Initiative

Slave Wrecks Project

The Slave Wrecks Project is designed to combine research, training and education to build new scholarship and knowledge about the study of the global slave trade through the lens of slave shipwrecks.

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Illustration of a ship hold transporting captive Africans superimposed above a split indigo and sand colored background
Exhibition

In Slavery's Wake

In Slavery’s Wake—Making Black Freedom in the World, the exhibition will travel to Africa, Europe and the Americas, shifting the way we think about, talk about, and represent the history of slavery, race, and globalization and its continuing relevance to our world today.

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Explore the Collection

Discover objects from the Museum's collection related to global slavery and freedom

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