Panel at University of Richmond Will Examine the Civil War-Era Leadership of Lincoln, Douglass and Davis
February 4, 2004
Three prominent historians will speak about the diverse leadership styles demonstrated by Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass and Jefferson Davis during the Civil War in a program Feb. 19, 7 p.m., at the University of Richmond Jepson Alumni Center.
The university's Jepson School of Leadership Studies will host the session as part of its annual Jepson Leadership Forum lecture series. The program will be produced by the Tredegar National Civil War Foundation and co-sponsored by Leadership Metro Richmond. A book signing by the speakers will follow.
The panel will feature David W. Blight, professor of history at Yale University and author of "Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory"; William J. Cooper Jr., professor of history at Louisiana State University and author of "Jefferson Davis, American"; and Harold Holzer, vice president for communications and marketing at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and author or editor of 20 books on Lincoln.
Blight's nationally acclaimed book, published in 2001 and winner of seven awards for historical research, recounts how the nation healed from a civil war that failed to produce justice, resulting in race issues that have haunted the United States since.
Cooper's biography of Davis explores not only his time as president of the Confederacy but also his distinguished pre-war career as Mexican War hero, congressman and U.S. senator and cultured, cosmopolitan and progressive proponent of transportation, territorial expansion and free trade. It also debunks the caricature of Davis as a cold, shallow racist, interpreting him as a man of his time--not the present.
Holzer, co-chairman of The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, is an authority on the political culture of the Civil War era. He has been interviewed on the PBS special "Abraham Lincoln: A New Birth of Freedom," A&E's "Civil War Journals" and "Biogaphy," CBS' "Sunday Morning," NBC's "Today" and numerous other television programs as a Lincoln expert. Holzer's many awards include the George Washington Medal from the Freedom Foundation.
Tickets are free but required. For reservations, call (804) 289-8980. Limited stand-by and overflow seating will be provided to patrons without tickets.