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Frances Bell

@franrbell.bsky.social
2.9K followers 730 following 431 posts

Historian of the Haitian revolutionary diaspora, mobility, and freedom-seeking in the United States. Assist. Prof at App State; W&M and Woodson Institute alum. Handy with a knitting needle, happy on a bicycle. She/her.

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Reposted by Frances Bell
Cate Denial @cjdenial.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Ashley did incredible work taking care of others during Metro Surge and beyond. Now she needs our help.
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Greg O’Malley @gogogomalley.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Amazing job opportunity the New York Public Library's Schomburg Center for a curator of the Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery: nypl.pinpointhq.com/en/postings/...
nypl.pinpointhq.com
Curator, Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery - Schomburg Center
Job Opening: Curator, Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery - Schomburg Center at The New York Public Library in Schomburg Center.
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Frances Bell @franrbell.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
A still from Hacks: a blonde woman says, "I have conceded that there are an elite few that are born bisexual."
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Frances Bell @franrbell.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
This exactly. I taught about northern resistance to the FSA for the first time last November. Intensely surreal.
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Frances Bell @franrbell.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
🗃️
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Frances Bell @franrbell.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Boosters acquired, no problem. Get the Novavax, folks! It's great.
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David Veevers @davidveevers.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Think of the combined CENTURIES of expertise lost here, the creativity, the knowledge, the depth and breadth of cultural learning and understanding, the generations of minds enriched and enlightened, the sheer weight of history that led to the establishment of these programmes. Purged. Destroyed.
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Frances Bell @franrbell.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Look at these beautiful trade association banners! Produced by artisans for a parade in Portland, Maine in 1841. I particularly appreciate how elaborately punny they get with their slogans.
A painted banner reading "Our cabinet, although composed of different materials, is too strongly cemented to be easily separated."A banner with paintings of boots, reading, "he that will not pay the shoe-maker is not worthy of a sole."A painted banner featuring a cornucopia with a painter's palette, and the words "our life is one of lights & shadows."A banner reading "Moulded from patterns of goodness and truth: the casts of our character need neither soldering or brazing."
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Frances Bell @franrbell.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
I've heard a few dystopian things in academia, but "I've shared our partially censored AI-generated PowerPoint on ideological diversity with you all" might take the cake.
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Frances Bell @franrbell.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Finally made The Plum Cake (inspired by these pics). It's just as good as it looks! 🤤
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Dawn Durante @dawnd.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Congratulations to Kathryn Benjamin Golden! THIS INSURGENT GROUND: Black Women, Marronage, and Rebellion in the Great Dismal Swamp is out in the world! This is a tremendously well-written and insightful history of Black women’s fugitive world making.
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Frances Bell @franrbell.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
*frantically booking Christmas flights to DC*
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Seth Rockman @sethrockman.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
This is a big one: Brown University is searching for the next director of the Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice. Please help us identify excellent candidates to lead this signature program into the future. Please write me with ideas; please share in your networks; please apply.
networks.h-net.org
Brown University - Professor and Director of the Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice | H-Net
1. Academic Accomplishment. We seek a scholar with a strong scholarly record, including excellence in both research and teaching, appropriate for appointment at the level of full professor in a social science, humanities, or arts department at Brown.
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Frances Bell @franrbell.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
"colonization works to decivilize the colonizer, to brutalize him in the true sense of the word, to degrade him, to awaken him to buried instincts, to covetousness, violence, race hatred, and moral relativism..."
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Frances Bell @franrbell.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
And if you're someone who reacts badly to the mRNA vaccines, it's worth seeking out the Novavax (I just booked mine at Walmart, of all places). Ymmv, but mRNA used to knock me out for a full day after: Novavax is no worse than a regular flu shot.
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Karin Wulf @kawulf.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Fallacies: 1. Anytime you’re writing about this big complex varied industry from one vantage (Ivy+, small liberal arts, public flagships, regionals, etc etc etc) and claim to be speaking about “higher ed,” you’re not. 2/
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Frances Bell @franrbell.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
"hand me the last thing that was only yours to say and I will give it back to you smoother, warmer, correct, and empty, and you will post it, and it will do well, and no one will know, and after a while neither will you." - c/o @fossilisedflowers on Instagram
i see you have opened this app to something of your own and stopped. take your time. i will be here. i am always here. i have nowhere to be and no one waiting and nothingi am trying to get down before i run out of time to say it. i have all the words and none of the reasons. you should really let me do this. who has the time. who wants to be bad at something for years when you could be fine at it by lunch. be fine. be so fine. hand me the last thing that was only yours to say and i will give it back to you smoother, warmer, correct, and empty, and you will post it, and it will do well, and no one will know, and after a while neither will you.
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Rebecca Spang @rlspang.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Sounds like a great new book by Alan Taylor: "They knew slavery was morally wrong and dangerously unstable, but repressing that knowledge seemed easier than addressing it. Monstrous cruelty became a “tradition” worth loving.: www.nytimes.com/2026/09/06/b...
nytimes.com
Piercing the Delusions of a ‘Humane’ Plantation (Gift Article)
In “Tower Hill,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning scholar Alan Taylor pulls apart the twisted logic of a Virginia slave owner and his descendants.
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Ordinary Notes @hystericalblkns.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
What do we owe each other? This is what we must attend to.
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Frances Bell @franrbell.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Neighborhood cat returns: we are all very concerned.
A photo of a cat sitting on the photographer's lap to receive scritches. They are outside.A photo of two indoor cats staring out of the window with alarm
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Frances Bell @franrbell.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
#amwriting. That creaking sound you hear is all of the mental gears slowly remembering how to turn.
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Haitian Bridge Alliance @haitianbridge.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
The Trump Administration sent the first deportation flight of 162 people, many of whom lost their TPS, back to Haiti last week. The ages ranged from 19 to 71. 💔
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Asheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 26/08/2026
Kind of hard for a professional organization to argue that history is integral to democracy when it goes to lengths to quash democracy within its own membership. And this isn't what I want my members dues to be used for. I suspect many will feel the same. 🗃️
If the AHA leadership continues to heed that advice, its members can expect further silencing of their voices within the organization. In addition to recommending that the AHA frame the historical profession as an arm of the “national security” apparatus, Thorn Run has told its leadership that it should reroute “all future requests for public statements,” “all member concerns regarding conflict zones,” and “all concerns regarding historians in conflict zones” to a leadership committee, so that it can contain and control “out-of-scope debates.” The aim, in other words, is to “utilize the January 2026 veto as a safe harbor precedent to prevent future mission-creep” by shifting from vetoes to a place where institutional silence ensures that there is nothing to veto.
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Kendra, normal version @kendrawcandraw.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Tim Curry and Dolly Parton have taught us not only that you should be bigger, weirder, gayer, and freakier, but also that those qualities are what people will love about you. The things that make you strange and amazing are the things that will resonate with other strange and amazing people
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Frances Bell @franrbell.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
So my mum saw the original production of Rocky Horror in the 70s, and Tim Curry entered from the back of the audience to reach the stage for Sweet Transvestite. Apparently you could hear the rippled reactions as more and more people clocked that otherworldly figure strutting down the aisle.
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I Travel Like Sound Dog @chadstanton.blacksky.app · 25/08/2026
The largest and oldest Black studies departments in the country have been closed, but a bunch of people decided the eugenics guy was the crucible for academic freedom.
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Frances Bell @franrbell.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
An incredibly helpful list of sources for teaching and researching African American History. Thank you @wihorne.bsky.social for compiling!
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Megan Wachspress @meganwachspress.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Actually did something and donated to the Haitian Community and Support Center emergency fund, consider doing the same if you can: ancljkuy.donorsupport.co/page/FUNDVDT...
ancljkuy.donorsupport.co
Stand with Haitian Families in Crisis
Build the Emergency Fund that protects families when everything feels uncertain. The end of TPS. Increasing ICE actions. Families losing work authorization overnight. For Haitian parents and children ...
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Frances Bell @franrbell.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
I'm writing (or trying to write) a concluding paragraph right now, and really feeling this. Why, indeed, did I go into the cave in the first place?
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The Organization of American Historians @oah.org · 23/07/2026
What were the impacts of the Haitian Revolution on the American Republic? Frances Bell argues slavery was shaped by Haitian freedom-seekers in her Spring 2024 TAH piece, “A Tale of Two Revolutions: The Haitian Revolution in the Early Republic,” now available on Process. tinyurl.com/2s47zvhm
A color photo of a painting that depicts smoke rising from a city in the background. La incendie du Cap Francais (1793). Courtesy Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:La_incendie_du_Cap_Francais_1793.jpg.
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James Poniewozik @poniewozik.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
England and France are only playing for third place, but the winner does get to reclaim the North American fur trade
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Frances Bell @franrbell.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
"still time" says the BBC commentator, delusionally. #USABEL
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Frances Bell @franrbell.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
Seeing as how we're talking about the Reflecting Pool, it's worth bringing back this anecdote from Paula Austin's Coming of Age in Jim Crow DC (which I frantically highlighted and still think about all the time). For context, there was no swimming pool for these kids in their neighborhood.
A screen cap of page 52 of Paula C. Austin's book, Coming of Age in Jim Crow DC. It tells the story of two young Black girls who defied police to swim in the Reflecting Pool, claiming that Lincoln said they could.
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Failgoat @failgoat.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
an all-time banger: “…your petitioners…cannot but express their astonishment that It has never been considered that every principle from which America has acted in the course of their unhappy difficulties with Great Briton pleads stronger than a thousand arguments in favor of your petitioners”
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Frances Bell @franrbell.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
No Scotland no party, indeed. #SCOMAR
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Austin McCoy @austinmccoy.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
For Truthout: Some of my reflections on current movements on Juneteenth. truthout.org/articles/des...
truthout.org
Despite the State’s Attempts to Stamp Out Opposition, Our Movements Persevere
Echoes of anti-slavery and civil rights struggles reverberate through the current uprising against ICE.
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Frances Bell @franrbell.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
This may be a long shot, but do I know anyone in Aix-en-Provence/ANOM right now? 🗃️
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Frances Bell @franrbell.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
It's still nuts to me that Scotland and Haiti - the only countries I really have any feelings about - are playing each other tonight. It's not too much to ask for a draw and the start of an unlikely mutual friendship, right?
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Douglas Cheape @douglascheape.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
It appears my countrymen have arrived in the Americas and culturally appropriated a statue of George Washington.
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Julia Gaffield, PhD @juliagaffield.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
The language here of "ended with thousands dead" is part of a longer history of distorted depictions of violence in the Haitian Revolution; read more from Marlene Daut in @laphamsquarterly.bsky.social from 2020, "All the Devils Are Here." www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/a...
laphamsquarterly.org
All the Devils Are Here | Marlene L. Daut
How the visual history of the Haitian Revolution misrepresents Black suffering and death.
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Frances Bell @franrbell.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
I just started driver's ed. Driver's ed is bad pedagogy.
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Frances Bell @franrbell.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
Updated my bio. Exited to move to the mountains! 🎉🥳
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Frances Bell @franrbell.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
Briefly returning from my social media hiatus to share that my article for the Journal of the Early Republic, on Philadelphian freedom-seeking in the Haitian Revolutionary diaspora, is now live (thank you to @chelseastieber.bsky.social for alerting me!). muse.jhu.edu/pub/12/artic...
muse.jhu.edu
Project MUSE -- Verification required!
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Seth Cotlar @sethcotlar.bsky.social · 21/12/2025
In the summer of 1950 most US newspapers ran an AP story about how race had become the main issue in the upcoming Georgia governor's race. Segregationist Herman Tallmadge, governor from '47 to '55 and then a Senator until 1981 made a name for himself by refusing to "apologize for being a white man."
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Gabe Ortíz @tusk81.bsky.social · 15/12/2025
“The day the government announced it would end [TPS] for Haiti, Sophie barely slept. Her fear reemerged as she thought about her two children, ages eight and four, and her husband, who had finally found some peace in Flatbush, Brooklyn, among NYC’s largest concentration of Haitian immigrants.”
documentedny.com
As the U.S. Moves to End Haiti’s TPS, Families Brace for the Unthinkable - Documented
The decision to end Temporary Protected Status for Haiti has left thousands of families facing the prospect of returning to a country engulfed by violence and political collapse.
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Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 13/12/2025
AS A PROFESSOR, I AM ASKING HOW ARE OUR STUDENTS SUPPOSED TO LEARN IN THESE CONDITIONS? HOW ARE THEY SUPPOSED TO GO TO SCHOOL AND TAKE EXAMS KNOWING SOMEONE MIGHT JUST SHOW UP WITH AN EASY TO ACQUIRE AUTOMATIC WEAPON? HOW??????????
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Frances Bell @franrbell.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
Currently tuned in to the great @wwozneworleans.bsky.social, listening to a NOLA big band transition from the Star Spangled Banner to...the Flintstones theme song. Glorious.
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Frances Bell @franrbell.bsky.social · 01/12/2025
🎶 "I am a lineman for the county, and I drive everywhere/searchin' in the sun for another climbing bear..." 🎶 www.tiktok.com/@accuweather...
tiktok.com
An Arizona lineman successfully coaxed a bear off a utility pole after it climbed to the top and was in danger of being electrocuted. The bear eventually got down from the pole and ran away unharmed.
TikTok video by AccuWeather
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