The West Virginia Humanities Council is sponsoring a Sesquicentennial Speakers Bureau to help organizations across the state commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War and birth of the Mountain State. On Monday, May 16 at 6:00 PM, West Virginia University history professor Connie Park Rice will speak at the Mary H. Weir Public Library. Dr. Rice will present “A Torch in their Souls: Slavery, Abolition, and the Underground Railroad in Western Virginia.” The talk is free and the public is cordially invited to attend. Dr. Rice is also Assistant Editor of West Virginia History: A Journal of Regional Studies, and a member of the West Virginia Sesquicentennial of the American Civil War Commission. She has a Ph.D. in American History and specializes in Appalachian Regional History with an emphasis on African Americans and women in the mountain south. Dr. Rice is the author of Our Monongalia: A History of African Americans in Monongalia County, West Virginia and has published articles in several books, journals, and encyclopedias including West Virginia History: A Journal of Regional Studies, The Journal of Appalachian Studies, West Virginia Encyclopedia, and African American National Biography.
Rice recently completed a biography of J. R. Clifford, West Virginia’s first black editor and practicing attorney, titled “Don’t Flinch nor Yield an Inch”: The Life and Legacy of Civil Rights Pioneer J. R. Clifford and is currently co-editing a collection of essays with Dr. Marie Tedesco of East Tennessee State University titled Daughters of Appalachia: A History of Women in the Mountain South.
