Nicole Williams, curator of collections for the Preservation Society of Newport County, will give a public lecture at Rosecliff on Thursday, Sept. 10, on how Newporters repeatedly turned the War for Independence into an argument for change in their own time.
The talk, “Revolution Reimagined: Memory and Freedom Struggles from 1976 to 2026,” runs from 6 to 7 p.m. and is tied to the current Rosecliff exhibition of the same name. It traces Black Newporters organizing for civil rights after the Civil War through the modern Civil Rights Movement and the American Indian Movement during the Bicentennial, and how those efforts reshaped what the Revolution is understood to mean.
“I’m eager to highlight the courageous work of Newporters who seized major commemorative moments like the Centennial and Bicentennial to hold the nation to its high ideals,” Williams said. “In the process, they created vibrant new visual histories of the war and enlarged what we know about the Revolution.”
Williams holds a doctorate in the history of art from Yale and has taught at Yale and Washington University in St. Louis. She curated “The Celestial City: Newport and China,” which won a 2024 Award of Excellence from the American Association for State and Local History, and is editing the Preservation Society’s first collections catalogue.
The lecture is available in person and on Zoom. Tickets are at newportmansions.org/events.
