Faculty Lecture Series: Dr. Mark Guerci

Dr. Mark Guerci will present some of his research on how Americans have remembered the abolitionist movement. Dr. Guerci will discuss how the murder of abolitionist editor Elijah Lovejoy in Alton, Illinois, in 1837 became a potent political symbol that continued to resonate in American politics well after the abolition of slavery. He will trace how shifts in public remembrance of the Lovejoy murder reflected the complex racial politics of the end of slavery, the Reconstruction era, and the rise of the Jim Crow system. Refreshments will be served.