[096]LECTURE FOCUSES ON EMANCIPATION, SLAVES’ POLITICAL MOBILIZATION

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Sept. 16, 2008
EDITORIAL CONTACT: Lisa L. Rollins, lrollins@mtsu.edu, 615-898-2919

LECTURE FOCUSES ON EMANCIPATION, SLAVES’ POLITICAL MOBILIZATION
Historian van Zelm’s Sept. 22nd Fall Honors Series Talk Free, Open to the Public

(MURFREESBORO)—The significance of emancipation and the beginnings of political mobilization among former slaves will be the focus of the Sept. 22 installment of the fall 2008 Honors Lecture Series sponsored by the University Honors College at MTSU.
The free weekly series, with its “Politics and the Press: The Relationship Between Government and the Fourth Estate” theme, is open to the public and conducted 3-3:55 p.m. Mondays in Room 106 of the Paul W. Martin Sr. Honors Building.
Antoinette G. van Zelm, historian for the Tennessee Civil War National Heritage Area and MTSU’s Center for Historic Preservation, will deliver the upcoming lecture, which she has dubbed “Let Us Have a Grand Rally”: Tennessee’s Former Slaves Become Citizens.
"During and after the Civil War, close to 4 million enslaved Americans claimed their freedom,” she said. “A key element of the transition to freedom was the participation of large numbers of African Americans, for the first time ever, in public and political activities in the South.”
These events, van Zelm continued, included Emancipation Day celebrations, July Fourth commemorations and political rallies.
“Often these events took place in the main political venue in southern towns and cities—the courthouse square, a place where enslaved people had never been allowed to assemble before," she noted. "The press recognized the significance of these events and covered them thoroughly … (and) newspapers and journals described the communal, patriotic nature of the public celebrations of emancipation and Independence Day.
“Coverage of political rallies was more varied, depending on the political party allegiance of the newspaper," she added.
For more information about the weekly lecture series, which will conclude with student-thesis presentations Dec. 1, please call the University Honors College at 615-898-2152 or visit http://honors.web.mtsu.edu/lecture_series.htm.


• NOTE: Next week’s lecture: Sept. 29 — “Imagining a Nation: Kurdistan or Iraq and the Problems of the Documentary Form,” Dr. Clare Bratten, electronic media communication.
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ATTENTION, MEDIA—Media are welcomed at all lectures. To secure a jpeg for editorial use of Sept. 22 speaker Dr. van Zelm, please e-mail your request to Lisa L. Rollins in the Office of News and Public Affairs at lrollins@mtsu.edu.