Speeches •

David Blight and student, Ry Walker, address teachers at a monument for the 29th Regiment, Connecticut Volunteer Infantry.

David Blight and student, Ry Walker, address teachers at a monument for the 29th Regiment, Connecticut Volunteer Infantry.

On June 21, 2017, Gilder Lehrman Center Director David Blight and GLC summer intern Ry Walker (YC 2020) addressed a group of elementary, middle, and high school teachers at a New Haven monument to the 29th Regiment, Connecticut Volunteer Infantry. The teachers were participants in a seminar taught by Prof. Blight called “The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass.” The seminar was organized by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Ms. Walker is a rising sophomore at Yale University. Through the Afro-American Cultural Center’s History Keepers Program, she was interning with the GLC for the month of June.

Read More

The Biddle Memorial Lecture: “DOUGLASS! DOUGLASS! Writing the Life of Frederick Douglass: Why, and Why Now?”

The Biddle Memorial Lecture: “DOUGLASS! DOUGLASS! Writing the Life of Frederick Douglass: Why, and Why Now?”

Lecture Film

David Blight gave the Biddle Memorial Lecture at Harvard Law School on November 9, 2016. His lecture, “DOUGLASS! DOUGLASS! Writing the Life of Frederick Douglass: Why, and Why Now?” was moderated by Tomiko Brown-Nagin, Daniel P.S. Paul Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School.

To view video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN3jo7TPs8o

Read More

Alistair Cooke Memorial Lecture

Alistair Cooke Memorial Lecture

Alistair Cooke was a British journalist and broadcaster, who presented Letter from America on BBC Radio for nearly 60 years. To commemorate his life and work, the BBC has invited historian Prof David Blight of Yale University to present the 2015 Alistair Cooke Memorial Lecture.

Read More

David W. Blight at the NYS Writers Institute in 2012

The featured speaker for the 2012 Researching New York Conference, David W. Blight will present a lecture, "America Divided, Then and Now: The Civil War in our National and Local Imagination." One of the foremost authorities on the U.S. Civil War, Blight is Professor of American History and Director, Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance & Abolition at Yale University. He has authored numerous works including, most recently, American Oracle: The Civil War in the Civil Rights Era (2011) and Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (2002).



2012 Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards (Ohio Theater, Cleveland)

2012 Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards (Ohio Theater, Cleveland)

The 77th annual Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards were presented to “books that have made an important contribution to society’s understanding of racism and diversity of human cultures.” Jury Chair Henry Louis Gates, Jr. presented a lifetime achievement award to Arnold Rampersad, humanities professor at Stanford University and author of biographies of Ralph Ellison and Langston Hughes.

Read More

2012 Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards (Ohio Theater, Cleveland )

The 77th annual Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards were presented to “books that have made an important contribution to society’s understanding of racism and diversity of human cultures.” Jury Chair Henry Louis Gates, Jr. presented a lifetime achievement award to Arnold Rampersad, humanities professor at Stanford University and author of biographies of Ralph Ellison and Langston Hughes. Awards are also given for non-fiction, David Blight, American Oracle: The Civil War in the Civil Rights Era and David Livingstone Smith, Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others and for fiction, Esi Edugyan, Half-Blood Blues: A Novel. The Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards were held at the Ohio Theatre in Cleveland.

http://www.c-span.org/video/?308485-1/2012-anisfieldwolf-book-awards