The Roberson Project on Slavery, Race and Reconciliation and the Center for Southern Studies will host a three-part colloquium of scholars, writers, musicians, and activists whose work engages the significance of unfree labor in the development of the U.S. South after emancipation. Earl Lewis will deliver the keynote address on Jan. 19, which is open to the public and will be webcast live. Direct participation in the colloquium will be limited to the invited participants, but others with interest in the subject may pre-register to listen in and contribute questions – in person or virtually – as audience members. For more information go to <https://new.sewanee.edu/southernstudies/;.

At 6 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 19, in Convocation Hall, award-winning author and historian Earl Lewis, Thomas G. Holt Distinguished University Professor at the University of Michigan, will deliver a talk titled “Our Violent Past: Unfree Labor, Terrorism, and the Search for Repair.” Lewis has enjoyed not one but three remarkable careers in and around the American academy. As a historian he is the author, co-author, or editor of nine books, including “Love on Trial: An American Scandal in Black and White,” “In Their Own Interests: Race, Class and Power in Twentieth-Century Norfolk, Virginia,” and “To Make Our World Anew: A History of African Americans.” As an academic administrator he has served as Provost for Academic Affairs at Emory University and is currently the founding director of the University of Michigan Center for Social Solutions. As a philanthropic leader he served from 2013 to 2018 as the sixth President of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. In all these roles Lewis has worked to strengthen humanistic education and to diversify the academy in the United States.

Lewis’ talk, sponsored by the Roberson Project, the Center for Southern Studies, and the University Lectures Committee, is free and is open to all.