Ann L. Chinn
Board Chair, MPCPMP
PERSONAL
I was born and grew up in Washington, DC, among family and friends with a strong awareness of history. Over the years I became a person who loves stories and the people who generate these narratives. Along the way I also realized that each of us is deeply entwined with a local and national heritage that can be traced through memory as well as knowledge. Textile art, social service, community organizing and historical research are constants in my life. Married to Charlie Cobb (journalist and author), I appreciate language, written and spoken. From my parents and many relatives, I learned the responsibility of honesty, humor and community. Being a member of a diverse and ever-expanding family of three children, five grandchildren, and numerous cousins, I increasingly appreciate the role we all have in telling the story, in valuing who we are and who helped shaped us, and in acknowledging that process.
PROFESSIONAL
MIDDLE PASSAGE CEREMONIES and PORT MARKERS PROJECT, INC (MPCPMP) 2011-2021 Executive Director / Board Chair
-Established the tax-exempt non-profit organization to honor African ancestors and their descendants in the Western Hemisphere
-Assist 55 documented U.S. Middle Passage arrival locations in conducting ancestral memorial services and installing historical markers related to the transatlantic human trade of Africans from the 16th through the 19th century
-Promote the history of the African American experience in the Western Hemisphere through lectures, conference presentations, research, blog posts, and maintenance of the website: www.middlepassageproject.org
COMMUNITY SERVICE
-Member, “Healing Day” Program Planning Committee, Africatown/Mobile, AL, 2019
-Advisor, 400 Years of African American History Commission, National Park Service, “Healing Day” Planning Committee, 2019
-Member, Advisory Board, North Carolina African American Heritage Commission, 2019
-Founding member of the League of Descendants of the Enslaved at Mount Vernon
EDUCATION
Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA
BA Major: Sociology, Minor: History
Yale College, New Haven, CT
Special Student, American History and Sociology (Independent Study)
The George Washington University, Washington, DC
Masters level coursework in Health Care Planning and Hospital Administration
No degree
Intertwined Stories: Rediscovering Families
Episode 8: Legacies