The Department of History and Political Science is hosting its annual lecture series in honor of Black History Month. The series features lectures that are free and open to the public.
The first lecture, titled “From Slavery to Segregation: Reckoning with White Supremacy in the American South,” was held on February 11.
On Tuesday, Feb. 18, at 11 a.m. in the Student Union Theatre, Ashley Tarleton of the Hammond Downtown Development District will present “An Ambiguous Estate in Life: Free People of Color in Louisiana’s Rural Florida Parishes.”
“Most studies of Louisiana’s free people of color center on New Orleans or other regions outside of the Florida Parishes,” said Department Head of History and Political Science Bill Robison. “Here, however, Ashley Tarleton, Southeastern alumna and former research assistant in the Center for Southeast Louisiana Studies, will focus on East Baton Rouge, East and West Feliciana, St. Helena, Livingston, Washington, and St. Tammany parishes (Tangipahoa was not established until 1869), using New Orleans as a comparative base to show how various global influences shaped the Florida Parishes and the policies of successive regimes affected the growth, experiences, and status of free communities of color there.”
“Barack Obama and Civil War Memory,” the final lecture of the series, is scheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 26, at 11 a.m., in the Student Union Theatre. It will be given by retired LSU History Professor Gaines Foster.
“The Civil War Sesquicentennial occurred with the first African-American President of the United States in office. He faced criticism for continuing the tradition of laying a Memorial Day wreath on the Confederate Monument in Arlington National Cemetery and for not attending the Gettysburg Address anniversary celebration,” said Robison. “Dr. Foster will argue that his response reflected his interpretation of the Civil War’s meaning, one rooted in traditional African American memory and his personal fascination with Abraham Lincoln, but also his larger vision of the meaning of American history.”
For more information about Southeastern’s Black History Month lecture series, contact Robison at 985-549-2109 or wrobison@southeastern.edu.
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