MARVIN T. JONES
speaks about
"The Winton Triangle's Families
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Media producer Marvin Tupper Jones explains that he grew up without any knowledge about the United States Colored Troops (USCTs), yet his great-grandfather and great-great grandfathers were USCTs, and another USCT is buried on his family's farm in Cofield, a village in the Winton Triangle,
Mr. Jones also says that although there have been many general studies and presentations about the USCTs, there have been very few studies to date that have examined in detail the particular groups that comprised the USCTs or their individual members.
With those facts as background, Mr. Jones researched into and discovered almost one hundred USCTs from the Winton Triangle. He will discuss how they contributed to the war and how they were interconnected by family and community despite serving in different regiments in several fields of battle. He will also discuss how some USCTs made significant contributions to their communities post-war.
Mr. Jones will share some of the media from The Winton Triangle digital collection, a project he began over a decade ago by scanning the photograph collection of relatives and neighbors, and which now has over 80,000 files of photographs, documents, maps, audio and video recordings.
Marvin Tupper Jones is the owner of Marvin T. Jones & Associates, a photography company in Washington, DC, that serves businesses, institutions, and governments. He has worked in South America, the Caribbean, and Africa. Mr. Jones’ documentary photography of Haiti and the East African nation of Somaliland was exhibited at the Organization of American States, Howard University, California African American Museum, and the Roanoke-Chowan Community College.
Mr. Jones’ decades-long career as a photographer has expanded to other forms of documentary media, through his founding in 2008 of the Chowan Discovery Group (CDG). The mission of the CDG is to research, document, preserve and present the 400+ year-old history of the land-owning tri-racial people of color of the Winton Triangle.
In 2009, the CDG co-produced its first major presentation: a stage production, scripted by Jones, called The Winton Triangle. The book, Carolina Genesis: Beyond the Color Line, features Mr. Jones’ summary of the Triangle’s history.
Mr. Jones and the CDG have successfully nominated eight North Carolina highway historical markers, which include three involving the Civil War. The CDG has also succeeded in placing the Pleasant Plains School, the Winton Triangle’s first, on the National Register of Historic Places.
In addition to producing five video documentaries and writing many articles, Mr. Jones has made presentations about the Winton Triangle’s history: on national and regional radio and television; at colleges and universities; at museums; and to civic groups.
Mr. Jones’ work for CDG has yielded awards of excellence from the North Carolina Society of Historians and the African American Historical and Genealogical Society.
For more information about the CDG, visit www.chowandiscovery.org
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