Everyone,
It is sad that Robert Engs has passed, too soon. He made important contributions to the historiography of Virginia, not least his book, Freedom's First Generation, on Black Hampton after the Civil War. His biography of Samuel Chapman Armstrong, founder of what became Hampton University, is one of the pillars of volume one of the Dictionary of Virginia Biography.
What I also recall is, many years ago, at a research library that shall be unidentified, I checked out an early 20th-century volume on slavery in Virginia. I found inside a marginal note, signed by Engs and probably written when he was still a graduate student researching his dissertation, warning that the author's prejudiced assumptions required correction. I've often thought since then of how dismaying it must have been at times for his generation of pioneer African American historians striving to reveal living, breathing human beings in the past by pushing aside all that mess of assumptions that hid them from view.
He will be missed.
John
-----Original Message-----
>From: Terry Meyers <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Jan 20, 2013 3:13 PM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Robert F. Engs (1943-2013)
>
> Members of the list will be saddened to hear of the death of Bob Engs, Professor Emeritus of History at UPenn and more recently Distinguished Visiting Professor at the College of William and Mary, where he has been instrumental in setting up and guiding the Lemon Project, the College's undertaking to document its history of involvement in slavery and racial discrimination.
>
> The announcement of Bob's death to the College community and two memoirs by former students testify to Bob's achievements, and to his legacy.
>
> http://www.wm.edu/news/announcements/2013/message-on-the-passing-of-robert-f.-engs.php
>
> http://robgregg.blogspot.com/2013/01/fifty-three-passing-of-robert-f-engs.html
>
> http://www.thefacultylounge.org/2013/01/robert-engs-2013.html
>
> Bob's passing is an especially hard blow for those of us associated with the Lemon Project, but we hope simply to redouble our efforts on the journey of reconciliation whose path he started us down.
>
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Terry L.. Meyers, Chancellor Professor of English, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg Virginia 23187 757-221-3932
>
> http://wmpeople.wm.edu/site/page/tlmeye/
>
> http://www.ecologyfund.com/ecology/_ecology.html
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Have we got a college? Have we got a football team?....Well, we can't afford both. Tomorrow we start tearing down the college.
> --Groucho Marx, in "Horse Feathers."
>
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John T. Kneebone
5107 Caledonia Road
Richmond, VA 23225
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