The Montgomery Museum and Lewis Miller Regional Art Center is proud to announce that Dr. Daniel Thorp, author of Facing Freedom, will be presenting a talk about his book at the museum on March 22, 2018 from 5:00-7:00 pm.  There will be a reception with wine and hors d’oeuvres.  Copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing by the author.

In the book, Facing Freedom, Dr. Thorp relates the complex experience of the African American Community in Montgomery County, Virginia as it negotiated a radically new world in the four decades following the Civil War.   Drawing on extensive research in private collections (including the Montgomery Museum’s collection) as well as local, state and federal records, Thorp narrates in intimate detail the experiences of black Appalachians as they struggled to establish autonomous families, improve their economic standing, operate black schools within a white-controlled school system, form independent black churches, and exercise expanded – if contested- roles as citizens and members of the body politic.

Black out-migration increased markedly near the close of the nineteenth century, but the generation that transitioned from slavery to freedom in Montgomery County established the community institutions that would survive disenfranchisement and Jim Crow.  Facing Freedom reveals the stories and strategies of those who pioneered these resilient bulwarks against the rising tide of racism.

On March 8, 2018   /   History