On May 20-21, 2016, the University of Memphis hosted “Memories of a Massacre: Memphis in 1866, a Symposium Exploring Slavery, Emancipation, and Reconstruction.”  The culmination of a semester-long series of lectures, workshops, discussions, and book talks, this symposium featured historians and scholars from across the country, including Robert K. Sutton, retired Chief Historian of the National Park Service.  Together, their presentations and the ensuing discussions pried open what has for 150-years been the carefully concealed history of Reconstruction, its legacies, and the significant role that Memphis played in both. We are thankful for all who joined us live or followed us on social media as we reflected collectively on a wave of terror that rocked a city and changed a nation.

Below are the names and titles of panel one, “Slavery and Slave Life in the Mississippi Valley.”

• Joshua D. Rothman, University of Alabama, The Cotton Economy and the Rebirth of American Slavery” Twitter Handle: @rothmanistan

• J. Calvin Schermerhorn, Arizona State,  Cash for Slaves’: The African American Trail of Tears” Twitter Handle: @CalScherm

• Max Grivno, University of Southern Mississippi, “Death on the River: Slavery in the Yazoo Mississippi Delta”

Moderator: Madeleine C. Taylor, Executive Director, NAACP Memphis