VCU Libraries 17th Annual Black History Month Lecture: We Return. We Return from Fighting. We Return Fighting.”

James Branch Cabell Library, Lecture Hall (Room 303)

901 Park Ave., Richmond, Va. 23284

African-American soldiers returning home after their service often encountered injustice and insult instead of honor and respect. Join us at VCU Libraries’ 17th Annual Black History Month Lecture for a moving and thought-provoking discussion about how our society treated African-American veterans after their service and how that affected them and their communities.

This event is free and open to all, but please register. Parking is available for a fee in the West Broad Street, West Main Street and West Cary Street parking decks. If special accommodations are needed, or to register offline, please call the VCU Libraries Events Office, at (804) 828-0593.

Christy Coleman, executive director of the American Civil War Museum, was featured in Time magazine’s July 2018 article “Meet the 31 People Who Are Changing the South.” She will address the experience of African-Americans in the wake of the Civil War.

Adriane Lentz-Smith, Ph.D, associate professor of African and African-American studies and women’s studies at Duke University and author of the 2009 book Freedom Struggles: African-Americans and World War I, will address the challenges faced by African-Americans after service in the military during WWI.

Kiara Boone, Deputy Director of Community Education with the Equal Justice Institute, will discuss EJI’s landmark 2016 report, “Lyching in America: Targeting Black Veterans.”

Jeffrey Blount (moderator) is an Emmy Award–winning television director whose 34-year career at NBC News included a decade of directing such shows as Meet the Press, The Today Show, The Chris Matthews Show and others. He is a commentator on issues of race and social justice and also an accomplished novelist whose latest book, The Emancipation of Evan Walls, is forthcoming this spring from Koehler Books.