Ep. 74 - THE GILDED AGE Season 3 Spotlights Newport, Rhode Island’s African Heritage Communities
Jordan Donica (Dr. William Kirkland) and Denée Benton (Peggy Scott) in Season 3 of THE GILDED AGE. Photo source: HBO
Episode 74 features a conversation about Newport and Rhode Island’s African heritage history with Keith W. Stokes, Rhode Island State Historian Laureate, and Theresa “Soni” Guzman Stokes, Executive Director for the Rhode Island Black Heritage Society. The Stokes were advisors to Season 3 of THE GILDED AGE.
In THE GILDED AGE’s 3rd season, the HBO series created by Julian Fellowes (DOWNTON ABBEY), we’re introduced to the Kirklands of Newport, Rhode Island, a family with deep roots in Newport’s African heritage community with the professional and educational pedigrees to match.
The Scotts have given audiences, and this podcast, a window to Brooklyn’s African American community in the late 19th century. Now the Kirklands bring the same opportunity to know more about Newport, Rhode Island’s 19th century Black heritage history and society including…
Challenges and the importance of history from the African heritage experience
“Interdependence” vs “Integration”
Newport's African heritage leaders in business and medicine…and more
Download the Transcript for Episode 74
Content Note: The word “colored” was used in the U.S. to refer to people of African descent during the mid to late 19th century. African Americans embraced “colored” as a self-identifying term at that time. Source: Tom W. Smith, “Changing Racial Labels: From ‘Colored’ to ‘Negro’ to ‘Black’ to ‘African American,’” The Public Opinion Quarterly 56, no. 4 (Winter, 1992)
GUESTS
Their goals were not to be chocolate-covered Vanderbilts. Their goals were to be who they were, and what they earned.
KEITH W. STOKES
Keith W. Stokes is Rhode Island State Historian Laureate. He is a 9th generation Rhode Islander, and a consulting historian for the Rhode Island Black Heritage Society. He has also been an Advisor for Rhode Island with the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
We're supposed to be interdependent on each other. And so that doesn't just mean that the interdependence is of the African heritage side. It's the other side as well. They are dependent on each other because isn't that what Americans are all about.
THERESA “SONI” GUZMAN STOKES
Theresa “Soni” Guzman Stokes is Executive Director for the Rhode Island Black Heritage Society, the oldest African American Heritage Society in the U.S.
Keith and Theresa Stokes, along with Nicole Williams of Newport Mansions (The Preservation Society of Newport County) were co-curators for “Gilded Age Newport in Color” (2024). Many of the objects on display were from Keith Stokes’s personal family collection.
Connect with the Rhode Island Black Heritage Society: webpage
Find out more about “Gilded Age Newport in Color” (a photographic journey).
Take a Virtual Tour of “Gilded Age Newport in Color” (Newport Mansions). The exhibition was produced by Newport Mansions (The Preservation Society of Newport County) in partnership with Rhode Island Black Heritage Society.
Purchase book titles related to this and past podcasts on the MBGLtd affiliate page on bookshop.org. Your book purchases support independent booksellers and a small commission supports Historical Drama with The Boston Sisters.
THE GILDED AGE (Season 3)
HBO’s THE GILDED AGE Season 3 trailer. Season 3 premieres on HBO and HBO Max June 22, 2025 at 9pm ET/PT
Created and written by Julian Fellowes (DOWNTON ABBEY), THE GILDED AGE is set in the 1880s in New York City a period of immense economic and social change, when empires were built, but no victory came without sacrifice. The series dramatizes the tensions between old money New York Society and the new money of the industrial barons who rose to power after the Civil War. Season 1 premiered in January 2022.
Following the Opera War in Season 2, the old money guard is weakened and the Russells stand poised to take their place at the head of society. Bertha (Carrie Coon) sets her sights on a prize that would elevate the family to unimaginable heights while George (Morgan Spector) risks everything on a gambit that could revolutionize the railroad industry — if it doesn’t ruin him first. Across the street, the Brook household is thrown into chaos as Agnes (Christine Baranski) refuses to accept Ada’s (Cynthia Nixon) new position as lady of the house. Peggy (Denée Brown) meets a handsome doctor, William Kirkland (Jordan Donica) from Newport whose family, especially his mother Elizabeth Kirkland (Phylicia Rashad), is less than enthusiastic about her career.
The CAST also includes (*real-life Gilded Age figures): Louisa Jacobson (Marian Brook), Taissa Farmiga (Gladys Russell), Harry Richardson (Larry Russell), Blake Ritson (Oscar van Rhijn), Ben Ahlers (Jack Treacher), Ashlie Atkinson (Mamie Fish*), Dylan Baker (Dr. Logan), Kate Baldwin (Nancy Adams Bell), Victoria Clark (Joan Carlton), John Ellison Conlee (Weston), Michael Cumpsty (Lord Mildmay*), Kelley Curran (Mrs. Enid Winterton), Jessica Frances Dukes (Athena Trumbo), Claybourne Elder (John Adams), Amy Forsyth (Carrie Astor*), Jack Gilpin (Church), LisaGay Hamilton (Frances Ellen Watkins Harper*), Ward Horton (Charles Fane), Simon Jones (Bannister), Celia Keenan-Bolger (Mrs. Bruce), Ben Lamb (Duke of Buckingham), Nathan Lane (Ward McAllister*), Andrea Martin, Audra McDonald (Dorothy Scott), Brian Stokes Mitchell (Frederick Kirkland), Debra Monk (Armstrong), Hattie Morahan (Lady Sarah Vere), Donna Murphy (Caroline Schermerhorn Astor*), Kristine Nielsen (Mrs. Bauer), Paul Alexander Nolan (Alfred Merrick), Kelli O’Hara (Aurora Fane), Patrick Page (Richard Clay), Rachel Pickup (Miss Andre), Taylor Richardson (Bridget), Douglas Sills (Bauden) Bobby Steggert (John Singer Sargent*), Erin Wilhelmi (Adelheid Weber), John Douglas Thompson (Arthur Scott), Leslie Uggams (Mrs. Ernestine Brown), Merritt Wever (Monica O’Brien), with Bill Camp (JP Morgan*).
HBO official site for THE GILDED AGE
Listen to past podcasts about the HBO’s THE GILDED AGE
