June 4th Monthly Meeting: Guest Speaker – Dr. Learotha Williams Jr.

AAHGS Nashville is pleased to have Dr. Learotha Williams Jr. as our guest speaker for the June Montly Meeting. The topic of his talk is “I’ve Got One More River to Cross: Middle Tennessee and African American Memory“

Please join us Saturday, June 4th at 9:30am at the Civil Rights Room in the Nashville Public Library. If you are able to join us, please RSVP.

Dr. Learotha Williams, Jr. is a native of Tallahassee, Florida, where he earned his Ph.D. in History in 2003, from Florida State University. He worked for two years in the public sector as a Historic Sites Specialist in the National Register section of Florida’s Division of Historical Resources. In 2004, he accepted a position as an assistant professor of History at Armstrong Atlantic State University in Savannah, Georgia, where he taught courses exploring Slavery and Emancipation in the Georgia Lowcountry and Historic Preservation. In 2006, he became program coordinator for its African American Studies program. While in Savannah, he continued his engagement in the public sector, serving from 2007-2009 as a trustee of the Historic Savannah Foundation.

He is currently a professor of African American and Public History at Tennessee State University in Nashville, Tennessee where his current research interests include slavery and emancipation in Tennessee, 19th and 20th Century African American Intellectual History, and Public History. At Tennessee State University, he serves as the director of the North Nashville Heritage Project, an effort initiated in 2009 for the purpose of exploring, chronicling, and analyzing the history of North Nashville as viewed through the eyes of its residents.

He has written works that explore the lives of 19th century African American politicians, African American education during the post-Civil War period, and the challenges faced by black presidents of Historically Black Colleges and Universities during the Civil Rights Movement. He is currently revising a biography tentatively titled, On Jordan’s Stormy Banks: The Life and Times of Jonathan Clarkson Gibbs, Florida’s First Black Secretary of State, 1828-1874, for the University of Arkansas Press and co-editing a book entitled A People’s Guide to Nashville for the University of California Press.

After the meeting, we welcome you to spend time working on your own family history research; books will be available to aid you. If you are able to join us, please register to let us know you’re coming. The meeting is open to the public and we look forward to seeing you there!