Was it April 9, at Appomattox, where Lee surrendered to Grant in Wilmer McLean’s parlor? Or was it ten weeks afterward, in Galveston, where a federal commander proclaimed Juneteenth the end of slavery? Or perhaps in August of 1866, when President Andrew Johnson simply declared “the insurrection is at an end”? Hear from acclaimed historian Michael Vorenberg about the struggle for peace and emancipation in the wake of the Civil War.

 

Michael Vorenberg received his PhD at Harvard University and now teaches at Brown University. He is the author of “Final Freedom: The Civil War, the Abolition of Slavery, and the Thirteenth Amendment,” which was a finalist for the Lincoln Prize and was used as the basis for the screenplay of Stephen Spielberg’s 2012 film, “Lincoln.”

 

Register for the February 19 Book Talk here