UIS Lincoln Legacy Lectures to discuss the Emancipation Proclamation and Slavery Today

The 10th Annual Lincoln Legacy Lectures presented by the University of Illinois Springfield will be held from 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday, October 11, 2012 in Brookens Auditorium, located on the lower level of Brookens Library at UIS.

This year’s topic is “Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation.” The lectures, and a reception and book signing that will immediately follow, are free and open to the public. No reservation is required.

The Lincoln Legacy Lecture Series brings nationally known scholars to Springfield to discuss issues that are of contemporary interest and also engaged Abraham Lincoln and citizens of his era.

This year’s featured speakers are Dr. Allen C. Guelzo, director of Civil War Era Studies at Gettysburg College, and Ron Soodalter, historian and author. Dr. Michael Burlingame, Chancellor Naomi B. Lynn Distinguished Chair in Lincoln Studies at UIS, will serve as moderator.

Guelzo’s lecture will discuss Lincoln’s decision making in “Four Roads to Emancipation.” Soodalter will describe “A Blight on the Nation: Human Trafficking and Slavery in America Today.”

Guelzo is one of America’s foremost Lincoln scholars and author of many books on Lincoln and the Civil War, including Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America (Simon & Schuster, 2004) and Fateful Lightning: A New History of the Civil War and Reconstruction (Oxford University Press, 2012).

Soodalter is the author of The Slave Next Door: Human Trafficking and Slavery in America Today (with K. Bales, University of California Press, 2010) and Hanging Captain Gordon: The Life and Trial of an American Slave Trader (Atria, 2006).

The Lincoln Legacy Lecture Series is sponsored by the UIS Center for State Policy and Leadership in cooperation with the Lynn Chair in Lincoln Studies. Cosponsors of this year's event are: College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, College of Public Affairs and Administration, Shelby Cullom Davis Charitable Fund, Engaged Citizenship Speakers Series, Illinois Issues, Illinois State Library, University of Illinois Alumni Association, and WUIS Public Radio.

 Seating in Brookens Auditorium is limited; however overflow seating will be available in the Public Affairs Center, Level 1, Conference Room C/D, where the audience can watch a large-screen live video feed. Those unable to attend in person can watch a live webcast by going to www.uis.edu/technology/uislive.html at the time of the event.

For more information, contact the Center for State Policy and Leadership at 217/206-7094.