VCU news

By Brian McNeill

Leslie Harris, Ph.D., author of “In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626-1863” (University of Chicago Press, 2004), and a history professor at Northwestern University, will speak at Virginia Commonwealth University on Tuesday, April 9.

Harris will give a lecture on “Slavery and the University: Histories and Legacies” at 6 p.m. in the James Branch Cabell Library Lecture Hall (Room 303), 901 Park Ave. The event is free and open to the public.

Harris is co-editor of several essay collections about the history of slavery in North America, and was co-convener of the first international conference on recovering the histories of slavery at higher education institutions in the U.S. and abroad.

The lecture, hosted by the Humanities Research Center in the College of Humanities and Sciences, is part of a series of speaker events and programs titled “Virginia’s Past, Present, and Future.” The series is taking place throughout 2019, the 400th anniversary of the first recorded arrival of Africans in British North America.

The series aims to foster an informed and constructive conversation about the events of 1619 and the mythology that has built up around them; the subsequent experience of Africans and African Americans in Virginia, British America and the United States; the continued impact of that history; and the possibilities for a future in which Americans can shed that legacy, building together a just and inclusive multiracial society.

The event is presented in partnership with American Evolution: Virginia to America, 1619-2019, and is co-sponsored by the Department of History in the College of Humanities and Sciences.