UMass Amherst professor Manisha Sinha will discuss how abolitionists, especially black abolitionists, may have influenced Lincoln to adopt emancipation in a talk at Brooks Memorial Library in Brattleboro on February 4. Her talk, "Allies for Emancipation: Lincoln and the Black Abolitionists,” is part of the Vermont Humanities Council’s First Wednesdays lecture series and takes place at 7:00 p.m.

Sinha will argue that only by including a larger cast of historical characters can we understand emancipation as a process that involved many individuals, rather than as a singular event and the act of one individual. She will discuss Lincoln's views on black military service and his interactions with African Americans to give a fuller picture of his move toward emancipation, and later, black rights.

Sinha is Associate Professor of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is the author of The Counterrevolution of Slavery and is currently working on a book on African Americans and the movement to abolish slavery. She has published and lectured widely on the history of slavery and abolition, southern and African American history, and the history of the Civil War and Reconstruction.

The Vermont Humanities Council’s First Wednesdays series is held on the first Wednesday of every month from October through May, featuring speakers of national and regional renown. Talks are held at Brooks Memorial Library.

First Wednesdays is also presented in eight other communities statewide: Burlington (at Fletcher Free Library); Manchester (at First Congregational Church, hosted by Mark Skinner Library); Middlebury (at Ilsley Public Library); Montpelier (at Kellogg-Hubbard Library); Newport/Stanstead, Quebec (at Goodrich Memorial Library and Stanstead College, in alternating months); Norwich (at Norwich Congregational Church, hosted by Norwich Public Library and Norwich Historical Society); Rutland (at Rutland Free Library); and at St. Johnsbury Athenaeum. The program is free, accessible to people with disabilities and open to the public.

Upcoming Brattleboro talks include “Return to Sender” with novelist Julia Alvarez on March 4; “I Celebrate Myself: The Somewhat Private Life of Allen Ginsberg” with biographer Bill Morgan on April 1; and “The White Mountain Huts” with Dartmouth professor Allen Koop on May 6.

The Vermont Department of Libraries and Windham Foundation are the statewide underwriters of First Wednesdays. Brooks Memorial Library is sponsored by Brattleboro Savings & Loan, Downs Rachlin Martin PLLC, Entergy Vermont; Friends of Brooks Memorial Library, and Merrill-Lynch, Brattleboro.

“Allies for Emancipation” is a National Endowment for the Humanities We the People Project: Sharing the lessons of history with all Americans. The talk is endorsed by the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission.

For more information, contact Brooks Memorial Library at 802.254.5290 or contact the Vermont Humanities Council at 802.262.2626 or info@vermonthumanities.org, or visit www.vermonthumanities.org.

The Vermont Humanities Council is a private nonprofit working to bring the power and the pleasure of the humanities to all Vermonters—of every background and in every community. The Council envisions a state in which every individual learns throughout life—a state in which all its citizens read, reflect, and participate in public affairs.

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