Historian Jimmy Price at the McLean Historical Society, November 12 -- "Experiment in Freedom: Arlington’s Freedman’s Village, 1863-1900"

This week I am pleased to announce that my pal and fellow blogger Jimmy Price will be speaking to the McLean Historical Society on Tuesday, November 12. Jimmy is the Historic Site Manager for Bristoe Station Battlefield Heritage Park and Ben Lomond Historic Site in Price William County. He has worked at such other sites as Arlington House: The Robert E. Lee Memorial, Richmond National Battlefield, and the American Civil War Center at Tredegar. Jimmy maintains the blog, Freedom by the Sword: A Historian's Journey through the American Civil War Era. He has earned high praise for his first book, The Battle of New Market Heights: Freedom Will Be Theirs By the Sword.  Jimmy's second book, The Battle of Deep Bottom: Grant vs. Lee North of the James, 1864, will be published by The History Press in 2014.



Detail of engraving from Harper's Weekly, May 7, 1864 (courtesy of Library of Virginia)

Jimmy will be discussing the Freedman's Village at Arlington. He provided me with the following description of his talk:

While many Americans are familiar with the story of how Robert E. Lee’s beloved Arlington estate was converted into our nation’s most hallowed ground during the Civil War, fewer people are familiar with the tale of a 37-year experiment in African-American freedom that took place on the very same grounds. Known as Freedman’s Village, this “experiment” was a collection of houses, schools, hospitals, and churches designed to house thousands of former slaves, train them in skilled labor, and provide them with a basic education. The village remained in operation long after the Civil War and was eventually consumed by Arlington National Cemetery, but its descendants live on today in the communities of Hall’s Hill and Nauck. This talk will focus on the village’s Civil War history, highlight some of the notable personalities associated with the site such as Sojourner Truth, and discuss the legacy of this overlooked experiment in freedom and citizenship.

Jimmy is a great historian, and I hope you will come out to hear him talk about this fascinating topic in Northern Virginia Civil War history.

Details

Date & Time: Tuesday, November 12, at 7:30 p.m.

Where: McLean Community Center, 1234 Ingleside Avenue, McLean, VA

The event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact me at ronbaum@yahoo.