Connecticut Public’s multimedia series about long-overlooked stories of Northern slavery earned this newsroom top honors in its category for innovative content — part of Local Media Association’s annual Digital Innovation Awards.
“Unforgotten: Connecticut’s Hidden History of Slavery” brought these stories to light through digital storytelling, television specials, podcasts, videos and live community events. The series even uncovered what may be the first Black published composer in U.S. history, Sawney Freeman, and featured modern performances of his rediscovered music.
Judges praised the initiative: “Connecticut Public’s ‘Unforgotten’ represents groundbreaking and impactful content strategy. This multiplatform project demonstrates an exceptional commitment to reaching diverse audiences and fostering meaningful engagement with a vital historical narrative. Seamlessly integrating audio, video, digital, and in-person experiences such as a community event, ‘Unforgotten’ also pursued a distribution strategy across linear radio and television, podcasts, streaming platforms, a dedicated website, a mobile app and social media.”
Eric Aasen, executive editor at Connecticut Public, spoke with LMA about what inspired the series, how it came together, and what’s next.
What was the inspiration behind your innovative content?
We wanted to humanize history – history that many of us didn’t learn in school.
When people think of slavery in the U.S., many think of the South. But slavery happened in the North — and throughout New England, including Connecticut. Slavery didn’t legally end in Connecticut until 1848 — just 13 years before the start of the Civil War. Thousands of people were enslaved in Connecticut. Thousands more were enslaved across New England.
Over the past few years, Connecticut Public’s journalists had been reporting on some of this history, focused on groups working to raise awareness of the topic. But we wanted to explore this history in depth: What happened, why it happened and why it matters today. It led to nine months of reporting, which resulted in our series, Unforgotten: Connecticut’s Hidden History of Slavery.
The series featured five stories: an overview of slavery in Connecticut; a former Connecticut state representative who learns about her enslaved ancestor, Candace; a profile of Venture Smith, whose 18th-century narrative is the earliest published narrative of slavery in the Americas and whose descendants are working to keep his story alive; a profile of a composer who was formerly enslaved; and a look at how teenagers are learning about this history.
Particularly noteworthy is our groundbreaking reporting on the once-enslaved composer who could be the first Black published composer in the U.S. We take our audience along on the painstaking search to learn about the 18th-century composer – named Sawney Freeman – and the melodies he wrote centuries ago. We’re with musicians of color as they perform this music — music played for the first time in more than 200 years. We’re the first media outlet to report extensively on Freeman. Experts tell us it’s a significant discovery.
What platforms or formats did you prioritize — and why?
We knew we were going to have some special storytelling, and so we wanted to take advantage of the opportunity by finding ways to prepare and present our reporting on a variety of platforms.
We wanted to offer this history lesson on as many platforms as possible. We ended up producing a digital series, a television special, radio storytelling, a podcast, in-depth videos, pictures, social media elements and a community conversation at a local museum.
This started as a radio and digital video series, so we had a radio reporter work with visuals journalists – they worked together to capture audio for radio and footage for digital and television. As the reporting continued, we fleshed out a podcast. We produced enough video for a television special. And we developed social media videos.
We’re a member station of both PBS and NPR and the networks showed interest, recognizing the special nature of the reporting. NPR aired a couple of our stories nationally on the radio and also highlighted our podcast and featured our social media videos on the NPR Instagram page. The video featuring contemporary musicians performing Sawney Freeman’s music has been viewed more than 260,000 times.
Did you use any new or unconventional tools, such as AI or storytelling techniques?
We used online transcription services to produce transcripts of our interviews, which utilize AI.
The storytelling is centered on people who were enslaved, as well as their descendants – some who only recently discovered their family history. We interviewed descendants in or near the places where their ancestors lived, worked or are buried, which added intimacy and poignancy to the storytelling. We travel along waterways, which played a key role in transporting enslaved people, and we enter cemeteries, where enslaved people were described on headstones as “servants.”
What community need or gap were you trying to fill — and how did your audience respond?
We wanted our storytelling to be as inclusive as possible and to appeal to a wide variety of people.
The series resonated with our audience immediately. Within days, teachers told us they were planning on using our stories and videos in their classrooms. Musicians and music teachers across the country are seeking access to music featured in the series, thanks to our reporting on Sawney Freeman, believed to be the country’s first published Black composer. Children and community music ensembles are starting to perform Freeman’s melodies – a direct result of our reporting.
The series has also been featured at various community events around the state, reaching hundreds of additional people.
We’re also measuring in-person impact. In March 2024, Connecticut Public organized a panel of experts to talk about efforts to uncover these long-ignored stories and recalibrate our understanding of Connecticut’s historical involvement with slavery. The event at the Connecticut Museum of Culture and History in Hartford drew a diverse audience of more than 100 people who were drawn to this important community conversation moderated by one of our journalists.
We’ve received extraordinary feedback, like this touching note: “As an American with both European and African DNA, I can speak from experience when I say this topic continues to be a great source of mental anguish on a daily basis. Thank you for sharing this story … I hope everyone will find something in the series that will move us closer to our shared humanity.”
What lessons would you share with other local newsrooms wanting to try something bold?
Give yourself plenty of time! We had people across the organization working on this effort – newsroom, community engagement, digital services, marketing and others. Collaborating with various groups across an organization – or even different groups within a department – requires extra time to meet, communicate, collaborate and get everyone on the same page. The more people you involve, the more likely there will be delays, so build in extra time to account for those delays.
And communicate, communicate, communicate! We had regular large group meetings and small group conversations, as well as various one-off meetings and a dedicated Slack channel.
What’s next? How are you building on the momentum of this/these innovation(s)?
We’re taking our template for “Unforgotten” and modifying it for an upcoming series focused on the Indigenous experience in Connecticut and New England. During our “Unforgotten” series, we noted some of the roles that Indigenous peoples played in building our country, but we wanted to explore the Indigenous experience in depth. We’re planning a series that centers Indigenous voices for fall 2025.