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 David W. Blight, author of "A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped
to Freedom" will discuss his compelling biography during the
evening. Free reservations may be made by calling 217-558-8934.
Copies of his book will be available for purchase in the museum's
bookstore.
The event was originally scheduled for last December but was
postponed due to inclement weather.
Slave narratives, some of the most powerful records of our past,
are extremely rare, with only 55 post-Civil War narratives
surviving. A mere handful are first-person accounts by slaves who
ran away and freed themselves. Two newly uncovered narratives and
biographies of the men who wrote them are the basis of "A Slave No
More." Filled with the two men's humor, faith and joy, the book
offers a rich, new answer to the question of how 4 million people
moved from slavery to freedom and tells the previously untold
stories of two men who can now take their rightful place in American
history.
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Blight is the director of Yale University's Gilder Lehrman Center
for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition, and is also a
professor of American history. His books have won the Frederick
Douglass Prize, the Lincoln Prize, four awards from the Organization
of American Historians and the Bancroft Prize. He writes for The
Washington Post and lectures around the country on slavery and the
Civil War.
[Text from
Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum news release
received from the
Illinois Office of
Communication and Information]
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