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December 3, 2007

Press contact: Erin Allen (202) 707-7302, [log in to unmask] 
Public contact: Center for the Book (202) 707-5221
Request ADA accommodations five days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or
[log in to unmask] . 
 

NEW BOOK ON THE MAKING OF LIBERIA TO BE FEATURED
AT BOOKS AND BEYOND TALK AT THE LIBRARY ON DEC. 10

    Who supported the African colonization movement and settlement in
Liberia in the 19th century and why? According to a new book by historian
Marie Tyler-McGraw, no state was more involved than Virginia, where black
Virginians sustained the early impetus for colonization and made up a
majority of the emigrants who went to Liberia, and white Virginians provided
much of the political and organizational leadership.

      Tyler-McGraw will present her arguments on the national and
international significance of Virginia’s investment in Liberian
colonization, discuss her research and sign her book, “An African Republic:
Black and White Virginians in the Making of Liberia,” at noon on Monday,
Dec. 10, in the West Dining Room on the sixth floor of the James Madison
Building, 101 Independence Ave., S.E.

    Part of the Books and Beyond series organized by the Center for the
Book, the event is free and open to the public; no tickets are required. The
program is co-sponsored by the Library’s Digital Reference Team in the
Office of the Director for Public Services Collections, which sponsored a
September 2007 presentation for staff on the “Virginia Emigrants to Liberia”
Web site. The site, currently under construction by the Virginia Center for
Digital History, is sponsored by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities,
the home of the Virginia Center for the Book.

    The records of the American Colonization Society, a major resource for
the book, are in the Library’s Manuscript Division. Other Library of
Congress offices and collections, including the Rare Book and Special
Collections Division and the American Folklife Center, were also central to
Tyler-McGraw’s research.

    In “An African Republic,” Tyler-McGraw traces the parallel tracks of
black and white Virginians’ interests in African colonization, from
Revolutionary-era efforts at emancipation to African-American churches’
concern for African missions. In her book, she carefully examines the
tensions between racial identities, domestic visions and republican
citizenship in Virginia and Liberia.

    From material gathered in the research, especially the ships’ lists in
the American Colonization Society records, Tyler-McGraw and her colleague
Deborah Lee compiled a database of almost 3,700 Virginia emigrants to
Liberia. The ships’ lists included ages, occupations, skills, literacy
level, family members, place of origin, ships on which they traveled and
time of arrival in Liberia. The Web site will also offer contextual essays
on the meaning of African colonization and the emigrant experience.

    A graduate of the American Civilization program at The George Washington
University, Tyler-McGraw is an independent public historian who has worked
for Virginia’s Valentine/Richmond History Center, the National Park Service
and the National Endowment for the Humanities. She has published widely on
African-American topics and is the author of “At the Falls: Richmond,
Virginia and Its People” (University of North Carolina Press, 1994).

    The Center for the Book was created by law in 1977 to use the resources
of the Library of Congress to stimulate public interest in books and
reading. For information about its program, future events, publications and
national partnership networks, visit www.loc.gov/cfbook/ . 

# # # 

PR 07-242
12/03/07
ISSN 0731-3527

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