Community Corner

Black Heritage Trail Founder to be Recognized

Portsmouth's Valerie Cunningham will receive the Granite State Award during UNH's Commencement ceremony this Saturday.

When Valerie Cunningham of Portsmouth receives the Granite State Award during the University of New Hampshire’s Commencement ceremony Saturday, it will signify much more than recognition for helping to create the Black Heritage Trail.

It will also be an acknowledgement of all the African-Americans who once lived in Portsmouth, first as slaves and later as important citizens. In some ways, receiving this award will allow Cunningham to come full circle in her journey to tell the story of Portsmouth’s African-American community.

“It’s important for the State of New Hampshire to say to all people of color that you do matter,” said Cunningham, a Portsmouth native who witnessed first hand the racial discrimination that African Americans experienced in the city before during and after the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.

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The Granite State Award is given by UNH officials to New Hampshire residents who have worked on projects that contribute to the state's betterment through volunteerism.

Cunningham pointed out that many people contributed to the creation of the Black Heritage Trail in Portsmouth, which consists of 24 historic sites throughout the city that tell the story of the city’s African-American population from the time they were slaves to the present.

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But it was her research while she served with a diversity group of the Greater Piscataqua Foundation in the early 1990s that launched the idea to create the Black Heritage Trail. She worked with Mark Salmons, the director of historic research at Strawbery Banke Museum, to create a 350-page resource book that documented African-American history in Portsmouth, which was distributed to public schools. Meanwhile, a subcommittee of the foundation group had formed that wanted to create the trail. The group later formed a non-profit group so they could raise money to pay for the historic markers.

Cunningham said what many people learn after they tour the heritage trail is that all of the things they associated with the South such as slavery, segregation and discrimination and the Civil Rights Movement, existed in Portsmouth, too. Cunningham believes it is very important to preserve this history as much as possible and she is always concerned that key documents or records from the Civil Rights Movement in New Hampshire could end up lost like many of the records from slavery in New Hampshire were lost.

The Black Heritage Trail, Inc., group has also created historic markers in several New Hampshire cities and towns to illustrate African-American history in those communities, Cunningham said. “I have done work to bring awareness about the Black history in the state, not just Portsmouth,” she said.

Cunningham is proud that the group was able to create 24 historic markers at several of Portsmouth’s most famous historic sites including Strawbery Banke and the proposed African Burial Ground site on Chestnut Street. The group also managed to preserve the Pearl Street Church as one of its first sites after raising $300,000, she said.

“…and we’re not done yet,” said Cunningham, who retired from the University of New Hampshire in 2008 and now works part-time at the Discover Portsmouth Center where she conducts guided tours of the Black Heritage Trail. For example, she said the city’s West End doesn’t have any historic markers yet.

Her research into African-American history in Portsmouth didn’t focus on which notable Portsmouth people from the Revolutionary War era or Colonial period owned slaves. It focused on who those people were.

“My interest in who were those Black people? They had lives. My interest is who they were, what their hopes and dreams were and what they were able to accomplish in their own lifetimes,” Cunningham said.

Thanks to the efforts of Cunningham and several other people, Portsmouth residents and visitors can now learn about the city’s rich African-American history.


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