The 400-years legacy of chattel slavery, marked by the arrival of twenty or more Africans in August 1619, and through its official abolition in 1865, has produced reverberations, issues, problems, and consequences, which continue to require critical reflection and action.

This is a follow-up to the “Colonization, Christianity, and Commerce:The Afterlives of Slavery in the trans-Atlantic World,” an international conference held in Monrovia, Liberia, October 17-19, 2022. This second conference seeks to interrogate two interrelated questions:

• How do we assess and respond to the continued effects of enslavement in both contemporary American democratic life and transnationally?
• How can the often-ignored religious dimensions of slavery and its afterlives help us to interrogate, critique, and examine the profound consequences of enslavement for contemporary politics, aesthetics, cultural, and religious life?