Events & Calendars Ancestral Bridges Guided Tour

Join Ancestral Bridges founder Anika Lopes as she introduces you to her ancestors, generations of Black and Afro-Indigenous residents of Amherst. They lived in the historically Black, west-end neighborhood around Hazel Avenue, on only one side of the train tracks. Some worked at Amherst College, serving meals on dishes that depicted Lord Jeffery Amherst shooting at Native Americans, while they mentored and befriended students. They started businesses and churches; they provided homes to Black people newly arrived from the South; they performed jazz music internationally; and they were denied scholarships, jobs and opportunities due to systemic racism. This exhibit, a partnership between the Ancestral Bridges Foundation and Amherst College, seeks to center this long-neglected aspect of town history and to reveal the rich and complex lives of the Black and Afro-Indigenous community of Amherst.