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What Happened to African-American Families Separated by Slavery After Emancipation?


Please join us in the Virginia Dare Room, Alumni House, at 7:00 pm on Thursday, March 4, for a lecture by UNC Chapel Hill History professor Heather Williams. Dr. Williams' talk, "Help Me to Find My People: Searching for Family After Slavery Ended," is the final lecture in our "Forever Free" series. We were especially interested in bringing Dr. Williams to campus as our last speaker as her current research focuses on the immediate after effects of emancipation on Southern black families, picking up where our exhibit ends.

Dr. Williams, whose first book, Self-Taught: African American Education in Slavery and Freedom, received numerous awards, has been at Chapel Hill since 2004. Before turning to academia, Dr. Williams taught at the high school level, winning a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship. Dr. Williams also had a distinguished legal career, working for the Department of Justice, the US Attorney's Office, and Miracle Makers. She is currently working on a new book project, Information Wanted: Separation and Reunification of African American Families in 19th Century America.

This lecture is free and open to the public. For more information please contact Kimberly Lutz at 336-256-8598 or kimberly_lutz@uncg.edu.

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