tides of freedom

Tides of Freedom: African Presence on the Delaware River

Bear witness to a story central to Philadelphia and American history.

Conceived by a committee of leading African American scholars and curated by the Lasry Family Professor of Race Relations at the University of Pennsylvania Dr. Tukufu Zuberi, Tides of Freedom let visitors explore the concept of freedom through the lens of the African experience along the Delaware.

Featuring artifacts from the Museum’s collection and gripping first-person accounts, there is no limit on opportunities for discovery and communication. By using four critical moments in Philadelphia’s history representing the themes of Enslavement, Emancipation, Jim Crow, and Civil Rights, Tides of Freedom urges visitors both to bear witness to a story central to Philadelphia and American history and to think about the meaning of “freedom” both historically and in today’s world.

For videos on the exhibit and other topics related to African-American History, please click here and here.

Tides of Freedom: African Presence on the Delaware River won in 2014 the American Alliance of Museum’s Excellence in Label Writing.

Exhibit Highlights

  • An original ledger containing 63 entries for the sale of enslaved Africans in colonial Philadelphia in the 1760s.
  • The ability to meet patriot James Forten, who used the ideals of freedom (espoused by the early American republic) in his highly respected sail making business.
  • Learn about the ships that African Americans built at a local segregated shipyard during World War II.
Facsimile of an old bill of sale on exhibit at The Independence Seaport Museum
James Forten Sailmaker exhibit at The Independence Seaport Museum
Museum guest reading information in the Tides of Freedom exhibit at The Independence Seaport Museum
Tides of Freedom waterfont pass display at The Independence Seaport Museum

Suggestions for Further Reading

Adults

  • A Gentlemen of Color: The Life of James Forten by Julie Winch
  • Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade by David Eltis and David Richardson 
  • Black Jacks: African American Seamen in the Age of Sail by W. Jeffrey Bolser
  • Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880 by W.E.B. Du Bois 
  • Black Sailor, White Navy: Racial Unrest in the Fleet During the Vietnam Water Era by John Darrell Sherwood 
  • Black Submariners in the United States Navy, 1940-1975 by Glenn A. Knoblock 
  • Doris Miller-Hero of Pearl Harbor by Bill O’Neal
  • Road to Freedom: Photographs of the Civil Rights Movement, 1956-1968 by Julian Cox
  • The Black Civil War Soldier: A Visual History of Conflict and Citizenship by Deborah Willis
  • The Long Emancipation: Moving Toward Black Freedom by Rinaldo Walcott 
  • The Messman Chronicles: African-Americans in the U.S. Navy, 1932-1943 by Richard E. Miller 
  • The Middle Passage: White Ship / Black Cargo by Tom Feelings
  • The People of Philadelphia: A History of Ethnic Groups and Lower-Class Life, 1790-1940 edited by Allen F. Davis & Mark H. Haller
  • Wobblies of the Word: A Global History of the IWW edited by Peter Cole, David Struthers, & Kenyon Zimmer 
  • Wobblies! A Graphic History of the Industrial Workers of the World edited by Paul Buhle & Nivolce Schulman

Kids

  • Dorie Miller: Greatness Under Fire by Dante R. Brizill 
  • The Prison-Ship Adventure of James Forten by Marty Figley

visit the seaport museum

Immerse yourself in award-winning exhibitions and climb aboard the Olympia, a nineteenth-century cruiser, and the Becuna, a World War II-era submarine.  

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