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 two, “Civil War and Emancipation in the Mississippi Valley.”
• Joseph P. Reidy, Howard University, “Black Soldiers and Sailors: Rebuilding Families and the Nation amidst the Chaos of Civil War in the Mississippi Valley” (Paper presented by Co-Director: Beverly Bond)
• Jim Downs, Connecticut College, “Dying to be Free: The Deadly Consequences of Emancipation” Twitter Handle: @jimdowns1
• John C. Rodrigue, Stonehill College, “From Emancipation to Abolition in Civil-War Tennessee”
Moderator: Femi I. Ajanaku, Director, Center for African & African American Studies,LeMoyne-Owen College Twitter Handle: @izegbe