In honor of Women’s History Month, Dr. Erica Armstrong Dunbar, author and Charles and Mary Beard professor of History at Rutgers University, will speak about her research on female abolitionists and escaped slaves in Philadelphia on Tuesday, March 5, at 7 p.m. in the University Commons Great Room.

Attendees will participate in a guided discussion of Dr. Dunbar’s research into female abolitionists and escaped slaves in Philadelphia before viewing the documentary Sisters in Freedom, a film on which she consulted. The evening concludes with a book signing of Dr. Dunbar’s books, A Fragile Freedom: African American Women and Emancipation in the Antebellum City (Yale University, 2008), and Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge, which was recently named as a non-fiction finalist for the National Book Awards.

Dr. Dunbar has published in Yale and New York University Press, The New York Times, The Nation, TIME, and The Philadelphia Inquirer. For the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, Dr. Dunbar co-edited a special issue of Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography. She also serves on the editorial board for the Race in the Atlantic World series, is a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians, and in 2011 was appointed inaugural Director of the Program in African American History at the Library Company of Philadelphia.

This event is hosted by the Office of Institutional Diversity, Black Awareness Society, Act 101/Gateway to Success Programs, Undergraduate and Graduate Studies, POWER, Melanin in Action, University Relations, Enrollment Management, Sociology, Anthropology and Criminal Justice Department, Office of Engagement and New Student Programs, and Pan African Studies Department, with collaboration from the University course, “The African American Experience in Philadelphia.” The course studies the local history of Africans/African Americans from the late 1700’s to present day.