Our Vision

To be a highly valued historical resource offering the leading educational, charitable, historical and community opportunities for the descendants, citizens, visitors, and other interested in our culture, heritage, local, state and national history.

Mission

The Stagville Descendants Council works to engage in the following:

• Presenting innovative educational opportunities, including exhibits, programs, publications, and on-line curriculum and digital resources that make the Stagville Society's history relevant in a national and international context.
• Collecting, preserving, and making accessible materials that represent our descendant's culture and history.
• Partnering with heritage organizations worldwide.  Encouraging and assisting with their activities and programs. 

Authority

The Stagville Descendants Council was established as a non-profit subsidiary organization of the Stagville Society in 2006.  The Council operates in accordance with its by-laws and other governing policies as established by the Executive Council of the Society.

Goals and Objectives

1.                  Preserve the local and state history of the Stagville Descendants Council and Community

a.      Establish relationships with history and social studies teachers and curriculum developers.  Assist in the development of lesson plans that tie in with the North Carolina Standard Course of Studies.  These lesson plans would help teach the history of the Bennehan-Cameron Plantations in North Carolina, Alabama, and Mississippi and how this plantation influenced and was influenced by United States history as a whole.

b.   Create, build, and maintain a Stagville Heritage Resource Center.  This center would serve as a center for the collecting and preserving of valuable historical records, as well as a location for various functions such as lectures, reunions, and exhibits. 

c.   Create, build and maintain a Stagville Historical Museum.  This museum would help us share our unique history with visitors to the area.  It would cover the African American, Native Americans, Asian Americans experience on the Bennehan-Cameron lands from colonial times to the modern day.

d.   Develop a collection plan to facilitate acquisition of new materials with strong research and educational potential.  This includes (but is not limited to) family documents, photographs, legal documents, and oral history recordings and/or transcriptions.

e.   Increase access to Stagville Descendants Council collections through an expansion of digital assets and online research tools.  We envision ultimately digitalizing our collections and making them accessible on our webpage.

2.                  Create significant venues for Stagville Descendants Council interpretive programming.

a.     Develop the proposed Stagville Heritage Center.

b.  Assist with the development of other interpretive exhibits dealing with the history of the Bennehan-Cameron plantations and its enslaved communities.

3.                  Strengthen institutional capacities.

a.      Increase membership and corporate and private donations.  This may include annual find drives, grants and major gift contributions.

b.   Expand and increase the organization's technology infrastructure to support inter-agency and inter-organization transactions as well as to be able to offer Stagville Descendants Council history and other pertinent documents online. 

4.                  Preserve and improve the physical assets of the Stagville Descendants Council and Historical Sites.

a.      Update the conditions report every four years.

b.      Start June 2008 pre-planning study for the Stagville Research Institute Center.

c.      Update and increase telecommunications, media and data storage capacities of all Stagville Descendants Council facilities.

d.      Assist in maintaining, replacing or augmenting the slave quarters or other buildings pertinent to the descendants of Stagville whether white, black, Asian or Native American.