Please join the Prince George’s County Historical Society for its May History Chat with Professor William Thomas about his book A Question of Freedom: The Families Who Challenged Slavery from the Nation’s Founding to the Civil War. Susan G. Pearl, our Society’s Historian, has been working with Professor Thomas on some small aspects of his study and will have a Zoom conversation with him on Monday, May 24, 2021, at 7 PM about some of the individuals and families profoundly affected by the processes of these freedom suits. Details about how to register for the Zoom chat are below.

William G. Thomas III is Professor of History at the University of Nebraska. He received his B.A. in history at Trinity College (CT.), and his M.A. and Ph.D. in history at the University of Virginia. He was co-founder and director of the Virginia Center for Digital History at the University of Virginia. He is the author of A Question of Freedom: The Families Who Challenged Slavery from the Nation’s Founding to the Civil War (Yale University Press, 2020). This new book has just won the 2021 Mark Lynton History Prize, the citation of which describes the book as “astonishing and monumental.” In just a few months it has aroused great interest in our area; it tells the story of enslaved individuals and families in Prince George’s County, who sued for their freedom in the courts of Maryland and the District of Columbia. Some of the names of the slave-owners, and of the lawyers who represented those suing for their freedom, will be very familiar to us in Prince George’s County, and we will learn from this powerful book the long processes that the plaintiffs went through, the successes and the failures, and the generations of the families involved.

 

You are invited to a Zoom meeting.
When: May 24, 2021 07:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

 

Register in advance for this meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0qduysrzgrHNQQmUY2d7o3vrym-vbr0a8F

 

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.