Join CLAS for our Fall 2026 Lunch & Learn Series. Our first presenter this semester is Dr. Maria Hammack (Department of History).
Free and open to all, registration required.
Abstract
This presentation will highlight the consequential but largely undertold story of the Underground Railroad to México through the experience of one woman who led the way. Like Harriet Tubman did for people aiming to reach freedom in Canada, Silvia Hector Webber assisted countless to freedom on Mexico soil. The life, experience, and unyielding endeavors of Silvia will be centered in this talk, as well as the ways in which her descendants are, today, leading the way in the recovery of her legacy.
Bio
Dr. María Esther Hammack is a Mexican scholar and public historian whose work bridges the histories of liberation and abolition that shaped the US, Mexico, and Canada. Her first book, Channels of Liberation: Freedom Fighters in the Age of Abolition reexamines the Underground Railroad to reconsider & broaden the actors, timelines, and geographies of Black Liberation in North America through the experiences of Black Americans, principally women, who left the United States to claim freedom in Mexican spaces.
Dr. Hammack is currently Co-PI of a Humanities in Place grant from the Mellon Foundation in collaboration with the Webber Family Preservation Project in Texas and serves various national and international orgranizations in various positions. This year, 2024-2025, she received the Rodica C. Botoman Award for Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching and Mentoring from the College of Arts and Sciences here at The Ohio State University.
