Dear VA-HIST list members:

Below is a release regarding an upcoming program co-sponsored by the Library
of Virginia.  I hope that some of you can attend.

Gregg Kimball
Assistant Director of Publications
  and Educational Services
Library of Virginia
[log in to unmask]

______________________________________

        On Friday, February 16, 2001, the Library of Virginia and the
Tredegar National Civil War Center Foundation will co-sponsor "African
Americans and the Civil War: Past, Present and Future Perspectives."  The
forum, which is free to the public, will be held in the lecture hall at the
Library of Virginia, 800 East Broad Street, from 5:30 until 7 PM.
Presentations by the panel members will be followed by questions from the
audience. A light reception will follow the program. Free parking is
available in the Library's underground garage.  The event is being held in
collaboration with the Maggie L. Walker Historical Foundation, the Astoria
Beneficial Club, the Black History Museum and Cultural Center, the Richmond
Black Memorabilia Society and the Richmond Chapter, National Coalition of
100 Black Women.

        "I am delighted at this opportunity to discuss the evolving
perspectives on the relationship of African Americans to the Civil War,"
said Dr. James M. McPherson, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Battle Cry of
Freedom: The Civil War Era and a professor at Princeton University. "It is
important to address this in Richmond, a city that was ground zero during
the war and now plans to house the nation's most comprehensive Civil War
center, the Tredegar National Civil War Center."

        Additional panelists include Kenneth Brown, a re-enactor with the
54th Massachusetts Regiment and a teacher in the city of Richmond; Dr.
Charles B. Dew, professor at Williams College, Williamstown, Mass.; Dr. Gary
W. Gallagher, professor at the University of Virginia; Dr. Norrece T. Jones,
Jr., professor at Virginia Commonwealth University; Lauranett L. Lee,
curator of African American History at the Virginia Historical Society and
Dr. Samuel K. Roberts, professor at Virginia Union University. The moderator
is Muriel Miller Branch, author and president of the Maggie L. Walker
Historical Foundation. A special introduction will be given by Delegate
Viola O. Baskerville, D-Richmond.

        "It is paramount that we look not only at the Union and Confederate
threads of the Civil War, but at how African Americans wove their particular
strand of antislavery thinking and actions long before and throughout it,"
said Dr. Jones, author of the book Born a Child of Freedom, Yet a Slave:
Mechanisms of Control and Strategies of Resistance in Antebellum South
Carolina. "This forum is a unique opportunity to begin addressing an area
that has not been given significant attention in the past.  For African
Americans, slavery was a devastating institution, but what is not commonly
appreciated is the fact that they played an important role in helping to end
it.  This forum provides the community an opportunity to learn more about
that proud but neglected history."

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