Professor Elizabeth R. Varon, the Langbourne M. Williams Professor of History at the University of Virginia, will deliver our annual Crozer Lecture on Thursday, September 19, at 5pm in the UVA Special Collections Library auditorium. She will discuss her latest book, Longstreet: The Confederate General Who Defied the South (Simon & Schuster, 2023).
From the publisher's page: "During the Civil War, General James Longstreet fought tenaciously for the Confederacy...After the war, Longstreet moved to New Orleans, where he dramatically changed course. He supported Black voting and joined the newly elected, integrated postwar government in Louisiana. When white supremacists took up arms to oust that government, Longstreet, leading the interracial state militia, did battle against former Confederates. His defiance ignited a firestorm of controversy, as white Southerners branded him a race traitor and blamed him retroactively for the South’s defeat in the Civil War. Although he was one of the highest-ranking Confederate generals, Longstreet has never been commemorated with statues or other memorials in the South because of his postwar actions in rejecting the Lost Cause mythology and urging racial reconciliation. He is being discovered in the new age of racial reckoning as 'one of the most enduringly relevant voices in American history.'"
The Crozer Lecture is free and open to the public. Paid parking is available nearby at the Central Grounds Parking Garage located near the UVA bookstore.