The Nau Center for Civil War History was proud to co-sponsor the Emancipation in History and Memory launch event on Sept. 29. Taking place in the Rotunda’s dome room, the event celebrated a temporary exhibition of important Civil War-era documents at UVA. On display were copies of both the Emancipation Proclamation and 13th Amendment, both signed by President Abraham Lincoln. In addition, a document handwritten by the famous black abolitionist Frederick Douglass was exhibited as well. Following the initial exhibition of the documents in the Rotunda, they were moved to the Harrison Institute Small Special Collections from October 2-22, 2018. There they were joined by additional objects about the war and emancipation from the Library’s collections.
Reflecting on these important documents, a discussion at the launch event explored emancipation in history and memory with the Nau Center’s Elizabeth Varon (moderator), Edna Greene Medford, a history professor and interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Howard University, and Richard S. Newman, a professor of African-American history at Rochester Institute of Technology. The video of this discussion is now available to view online.
Following the historians’ panel discussion, members of the “Memorial to Enslaved Laborers” design team provided an update on construction and explanation of the memorial’s meaning and design. Video of this update is also available online.