News Release

Civil War Symposium to Feature Four Renowned Civil War Historians

Date: March 20, 2011

Release date: March 20, 2011
Contact: Justin Sochacki
Phone number: [phone]

Topeka, KS –The 150th anniversary of the Civil War will be commemorated across the nation from 2011-2015. Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site will kick off the anniversary with a symposium featuring four outstanding Civil War historians: Dr. David Blight, Dr. Dwight Pitcaithley, Arnold Schofield, and James Denny. Audience members can listen to presentations, ask questions, and interact with Civil War scholars and enthusiasts, as well as purchase books and have them signed by visiting historians. The symposium will be from 1:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Sunday, March 27, with pre-event book signing beginning at 12:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

The four speakers will present insights into the bitter conflict that produced "a new birth of freedom" in the country when the chains of bondage were released from four million enslaved men, women, and children. Collectively, the four speakers will present a national picture of the war as a turning point in history, examine the war's many relevant legacies, and shed light on the regional war that raged along the Missouri and Kansas border in the 1850s and 1860s.

Dr. David Blight is the director of Yale University's Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition, a professor of history at Yale, and author of numerous books, including the award winning Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory. Dr. Dwight Pitcaithley is the former Chief Historian of the National Park Service and an expert on the secession conventions of the South. Arnold Schofield is a former park historian of Fort Scott National Historic Site and an authority on the Civil War era in Missouri and Kansas. James Denny is a Missouri based historian and co-author of The Civil War's First Blood: Missouri, 1854-1861.

Programs are cosponsored by Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site and the Brown Foundation for Educational, Equity, Excellence, and Research and are part of the 2010-2011 program series titled Commemorating Our Nation's Struggle for Freedom: From Civil War to Civil Rights. For a list of all events and exhibits in the annual program series, please visit www.nps.gov/brvb and click on the Special Events link. To RSVP for this event by March 25, please e-mail the Brown Foundation by clicking here or call [phone]. Seating is limited.

Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site tells the story of the U.S. Supreme Court decision that ended legal segregation in public schools. The site is located at 1515 SE Monroe Street in Topeka, Kansas, and is open free of charge from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, with the exceptions of Thanksgiving, December 25, and January 1. For more information, visit www.nps.gov/brvb or call [phone].