"Let's Talk About It: Making Sense of the American Civil War" Book Discussion and Lecture

The second in this series of five book discussions will focus on the topic "Choosing Sides" and will use selections from the book, America's War: Talking About the Civil War and Emancipation on their 150th Anniversaries, a new anthology edited by Edward L. Ayers.  Copies of the book are available from Hunt Memorial Library (for members of the FVSU community) and at the Peach Public Libraries for members of the public. 

The specific readings from the anthology are:

• Abraham Lincoln, address on colonization [1862];
• John M. Washington, "Memorys [sic] of the Past" [1873];
• Frederick Douglass, "Men of Color, To Arms!" [March 1863];
• Abraham Lincoln, letters to James C. Conkling [1863] and Albert G. Hodges [1864];
• Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address [1863];
• James S. Brisbin, report on U.S. Colored Cavalry in Virginia [Oct. 2, 1864];
• Colored Citizens of Nashville, Tennessee, Petition to the Union Convention of Tennessee Assembled in the Capitol at Nashville [January 9, 1865];
• Margaret Walker, excerpt from Jubilee [1966];
• Leon Litwack, excerpt from Been in the Storm So Long [1979]; and
• Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address, 1865.

The program will open with remarks, followed by a brief lecture by our project scholar, Dr. Dawn Herd-Clark. Following the lecture, participants will break into small groups for 30-45 minute discussions. Following the group discussions, participants will reconvene for a wrap-up and closing comments.

For more information, please contact Ms. Shaundra Walker, Project Director at 478-825-6764 or walkers01@fvsu.edu; or visit the project web page.

Let's Talk About It: Making Sense of the American Civil War, a reading and discussion series, has been made possible through a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Library Association.