This event and provided the video. Its my pleasure to introduce nicole and her book, Nicole Turner is assistant professor of religious studies at yale university. She earned her p. H. D. In history at the university of pennsylvania, her masters in divinity at Union Theological seminary in new york and her bachelors degree from Political Science from howardford college and is the author this 2020 book, soul liberty the evolution of black religious politics in post emancipation virginia published any the university of North Carolina press. And before asking if nicole the first question, i want to mention this book appears in this kind of conventional version of a hard copy but also has two other versions and part of what makes her work so interesting is its so engaged with digital humanity. The book also exists as a conventional, sort of conventional she describes it verbatim open access ebook and also as an enhanced open access ebook which has which shows off what dr. Turner was able to do with mapping and kind of Digital Technology in order to develop her research findings. So one of the things i hope well get to talk about today is how she worked with those sources and what kind of promise she thinks digital humanities holds for this kind of research into africanAmerican History in particular. So just to get us started off, dr. Turner, tell us a little bit about this book. How do you describe this book to people who dont know anything about it, what are its main arguments, what does it accomplish, and how do you see it kind of contributing to the general conversation . That was a lot of questions. Lets start with give us your general kind of pitch about this book and what essential claims are. Nicole this book first of all, i want to say thank so you much for having me as part of the series part of a wonderful series of other scholars to be here but appreciate it to talk about my work. In the book soul liberty is about the evolution of black religious politics and the main how is to his torize blacks became political and there are stories of how they became politically engaged and my work was to their eight that process and wasnt always engaged in the same ways and that black churches are in fact historical stages that have changed across time and changed in the reconstruction and what s the main aim of the book is. Thank you so much. Well be bouncing back and forth. So i dont mean to catch you from two different sides. But really delighted to read the book and really exciting and i have about nine million questions so im going to ask them all at once and talk really fast. Ive got to be patient for all the things that i want to ask later. Bg building off of what you just said, i wonder if you can help us understand by what you mean by soul liberty . Its not just a lovely title but also a concept you turn to over in the book and seems to speak to some of these intersections youre so interested in religion and politics and how they shape each other. I wonder if you can get us started on what that means in your work . Nicole sure, thank you. So soul liberty comes from a quote in the Virginia Baptist Association minutes where the members of the convention were citing Roger Williams pursuit of soul liberty in the formation of rhode island. What is interesting about the use of that term is its not only a term that applies to the black baptists as a part of the udy but applies to black episcopalians and the black Apostolic Church that started in southern virginia and southern North Carolina. But it is an idea of religious freedom and the idea black people could worship when, where and with whom they chose and also points to this idea of equity and justice and richeseness they were pursuing in their prg communities and in the public landscape. The term originally comes from a very particular baptist concept is also that applies to the black baptist and Virginia Baptist State Conventions and the black episcopalians who attended the grant Theological School which was the first black seminary for black mine its and priests in the episcopal tradition and the zions of Apostolic Church one of few black denominations started in the south, one of and ly ones in the south pursued this idea to worship as so fit and also the idea of freedom, equity and justice. Gregory your answer captured i think many of the really fascinating aspects of it, one of which that particularly struck me and you note in your own text and in your own notes is that the pursuit of liberty at first glance might read as liberty to worship separate from white interference which certainly is an important part of the story but also a liberty that allows for quite different types of formation in the religious world and i was interested in, you know, you write about the ways for understandable reasons baptists in the a. M. E. Church so centrally in the literature which makes perfect sense and yet other religious experiences, the episcopalians whom you mentioned or the africanamericans of the m. E. C. Which developed later and others seem to be harder to pin down in the literature. And what is it you think we gain when we study people who choose to operate in what seems to be a completely africanamerican state but to remain within a white dominated denomination . What is it that we as a historian, what drew you to those faces as well . Nicole i hear in your question a couple things, one has to do with the definition of liberty and what has to do with the differences in the denominations and their approaches. And i would say first that this comes only to see this landscape comes from doing a sort of geographical look, a study that begins in a particular place in virginia and sort of not picking the lens of a particular denomination and didnt come to it only through the lens of baptists but looking at the landscape of virginia which yielded up all three of these different denominations. And when you start to think about how each of these religious communities chose to pursue freedom, you know, becomes really evident that for the baptists, part of the trajectory of their struggle goes through, you know, the beginning where black baptists are organized already in nventions before the vote is established by the 16th amendment but they are already making arguments for their political participation and for their skill, something that was absent before emancipation and black people were organizing in the associations and they have sort of demonstrated the skill to participate as citizens through their own religious communities. But then you find, you know, a very interesting story of Saint Stevens Episcopal Church in st. Petersburg, pennsylvania, started by a black woman who in complication with a white priest from a church that her family became members of establishes an independent black church, one of the first black Episcopal Churches for the community in st. Petersburg and its an interesting story because i think a lot of people tend to associate the amiss copal church of a high culture of a inflated preblack community and dont tend to associate black typical church with black women leadership. And for instance, you have black people like caroline bragses who membered teabt the church and george brag to become interested in the black Freedom Church which drew me to the Political Landscape and george bragg becomes involved in the movement and becomes sort of a critical agent in narrating black history and reflects how the struggle for black freedom took place in many spaces, whether it was black baptists who were establishing their own independent spaces and churches and associations or if it was black episcopalians sort of navigating the landscape of engaging with former confederates as george bragg did as a student at the brandt Theological School as a participant in the readjusted movement and really opens up a way of thinking of how did my people go about forming this type of alliance and one of the things that drew me to this particular case of virginia is how did they form this alliance. So i think one of the things that becomes evident in the struggle is real in all these spaces, black people struggling for freedom and finding ways to achieve it in these various locations. Kate thanks so much, nicole. This is so interesting, now the vast majority of your book takes us into the post civil war period. Youre really talking and the title picks up the post event emancipation moment but wanted to have you talk a little bit about that transition from slavery to freedom. Youre talking about an area in virginia where the vast majority of africanamericans before the civil war were enslaved though there were free black people as well and how would you describe for us for readers what that transition looked like, what were the aspects of black religious experiences during the time of slavery that informed what team did after emancipation and what were the particular challenges that people faced as slavery came to an end during the civil war and afterwards and how do you understand and see that transition . Nicole thank you. I think the transition can be seen best by thinking in part the longstanding narratives of black Church Engagement and sort of thinking about how it is in the antivolunteerism there were independent black churches where black people were able to worship, independent churches and that they were able to develop leadership skills and one of the things we start to see happening in the post emancipation landscape is debate about landownership and property and so theres a really interesting aspect of thinking about black landownership of something that came first to churches and that black people were starting to navigate the legal system through trying to secure ownership by title and formal ownership of churches they actually made into help support and develop economically but didnt have the right to sort of full name ownership, on the deed type of situation. Part of that transition involves a transition to property ownership. Part of what you see transforming in the post emancipation period has to do a little bit with gender roles. One of the other things i wanted to highlight in this moment is how gender roles were being established in Church Communities and so part of what you can see or what i try to convey in telling the story of the Baptist Church in st. Petersburg and listen closely to the landscape of the meetings in the church is how gender roles were actually being transformed in that moment. And so one of the things i focused on in looking at the ses of unwed pregnancy which in these meetings handled different kind of issues but focused on the case of unwed pregnancy because there is a clear transformation in how the community initially didnt, you know, hold both parties accountable for a woman being pregnant out of wedlock for a brief moment in time they do allow for both parties to be ld accountable and then they shifted back to go back to being held accountable and what happened as a result is women moved back to the space of only being dependent in Church Meetings and you see the rise of a centralized figure who is male and who has a particular sort of gender status. I think there are ways in which the leadership roles change and expand, how access to land and property is something that changes through the churches across this time and also how gender roles are being transformed on the landscape of institutions. Kate just to follow up on that question of gender roles, i feel like you make reference to the work, work on a later period of, for instance, Linda Gilmore and to some extent Barkley Brown about kind of an argument that either gender roles among africanamericans particularly in churches became more kind of what we now understand to be conventional ideas about male leadership and female women kind of being a part of the church but not being in leadership roles and conventional ideas about gender respectability that that emerged later in the 1890s or so and im just wondering, you know, do you see what youre finding is suggesting that all of the things that people said came about later actually happened earlier . And also i think that raises a question which is interesting and kind of repeated in a lot of different places that historians have suggested that the immediate post emancipation period was a period of greater experimentation around gender hierarchy among africanamericans kind of coming out of slavery, that there was more fluidity and more conversation because of, for example, so many families and marriages had been interrupted by the domestic slave trade and now you have this moment of more flexibility, are we finding something really different from that here . Nicole yes, i think the short answer is yes, when you look at the petersburg landscape you see the imposition of gender roles taking place much earlier. I think the question is not necessarily one of only time period but also place and also circumstance and also of particular leadership model, and you know, one of the things i talked about in the study and acknowledged is this is a look, a deep look at a particular community. And we need many more studies and many more locations in order to see these transformations and how they emerged. Yes, i definitely think in this particular case its a challenge to sort of thinking how gender roles could be transformed much earlier and in this particular instance, finding this cache of churches that really revealed what was taking place on the ground in this community was very instructive, you know, that people were having various experiences of how gender was being transformed during that time. Gregory one of the places that we see that is in the conventions and conferences in these other organizational and networking levels. And you know, well come back to this in a little bit when we turn to mapping but staying on the level of more of your argument, i want to say first, i think one of the joys in reading this book and in reading other books of history that have this deep grab you laterity of seeing a history granularity of seeing a historians, some of them rush past because they dont see it interesting and people see why congregations are interesting but conferences and conventions, theres a lot of, who is representing, and to explain why, not only that is meaningful, which was meaningful to them but also interesting and i do think its one of the magical moments of the book to see you take this thing that we would all feel the impulse to be how do i get to the good stuff and say this actually is the good stuff if we see it right, or this networking and connection, and also, though, as you say, for the way it ties back to your question about gender, about the ways that these spaces become not exclusively but spaces of the male ministerial privilege. I wonder if you could just tell people who havent yet read it what you draw from, what you learn from those areas and why you think those faces matter. What youve got space, drew you to it . Did you know all along that was going to be a real telling part or did it develop over the course of your study . Nicole thank you so much. Its funny because i do remember people cautioning me about a couple things, one being there would not an lot of information about churches and the records were not deep and conventions would be really boring and theres not a lot in them but i would say i was encouraged by evelyn when she actually reduced the schedule of the convention. And i was like wow, that was really instructive about something i had no real insight into after having read the book so i knew there was something you could do with those minutes beyond be bored by them. The baptist know, Convention Minutes are a treasure trove of information about black religious and political life preserved on microfilm. Some of them have 30year runs of their Convention Minutes over the Virginia Baptist State Convention, every year you can find an annual convention record. Its robust. I only looked at one segment of the state. These exist for every state almost. Its a huge archive, if you think about it, of black and as i got into them, there was a lot here to see and it also came out of an investment in using the archive of black peoples lives. So in recognition the archives of black religious life in many instances can be small, can be mediated often through the eyes of white people, that this is an archive that comes from black people about his experience and so it was really important for me to venture those sources and to use every bit, like i remember in graduate school, one of my instructors talking about being told, when you find something about black peoples lives you have to figure out how you can use it and use it in the most robust way possible. So it was really important for me to read those sources and get everything i could from them. You cant help but be struck by what is included in them. The names of all of these delegates who attended, the names and locations of all the churches that are there. I mean, you know, the different issues that theyre discussing and reporting in their minutes. Their financial records. Theyre rich, incredibly rich. I saw so much more in them and it was so important to use. And then as im reading through them, im noticing there are no women sort of initially on the boards of these conventions but they show up, they show up in these accounts where theyre acknowledged for their donations for these conventions, the donation of a golden coin. Then you see it happen again. And then you see it happen again. Huh . Whats going on here that women are showing up in this very particular way. To me it speaks to how women become central financial figures is one of the first way we see them in the convention is as donors, people who are financially demonstrating the sacrificial giving that, you know, so many of these conventions rely on. So you know, it was one of these narratives that is already running in my head about the role of black women and churches of financial people and seeing it be constructed in rely time in the conventions as people are being recognized for their giving. And of course it raises the question about how a black man is being constructed in these faces and churches and all these kinds of things which is the other aspect of the story i wanted to tell, right . We had great works that point to the ways women played a role in the construction of black baptist conventions and blackness and social activism and all these things and kind of take a step back and say how is black man being constructed in spaces and also was something i thought was worth trying to unearth and was a also something happening. And i got some of the Convention Minutes and Church Record that there was Something Else taking place here, too. Nicole thank so you much. Thats a really good segue to something i wanted to follow up on. I think one of the Central Claims you said at the beginning of your book, at the beginning of the talk has to do with the relationship between black church organizing and politics in the form of politics sense and in the sense of voting Party Politics, electoral politics, so you talking about being interested in investigating what you can tell about the construction of black manhood through these Church Records leads me into the question of those developments within churches and whats going on in formal politics where in 1867 africanamerican men or franchised for the first time and begin to vote and black people begin to play a totally different and more Important Role in Party Politics, becoming republicans, eventually becoming readjusters. So what is your how do you xplain the impact of the entry of africanamerican men in particular to the formal politics of voting and being a part of Party Politics and the relationship between that and developments within churches . Nicole thank you. I think a couple of things. One has to do with what i think as saying in the background in guilfield, the church dealing with issues of unwed pregnancies at the same time that black men are getting to vote at the same time the black men are running for office and other members of the church are running for office or holding office. And these things are happening concurrently. And the church made the set of decisions they did about women and emancipation because of that Political Landscape and part of the consideration and i arrive at that assessment where i think its part of the assessment because as you look at the long trajectory of how people thought about themselves, and their role in society and how they were being viewed, i think it has implications or suggest they were thinking about how the church life is perceived and members being perceived as black men are getting the right to vote and hold office. And as far as Political Engagement, it has to do with the way black people were organizing in their conventions and the way they understood themselves already as politically savvy and politically skilled. You think about the conventions where they were Holding President ial elections and having committees and doing all the work of political participation, so to suggest that they should somehow not be allowed to hold office at the highest level, you know, would wrinkle with anybody, right, before these people in particular who are even doing it for themselves and told we cant put it in a box the adjusters wanted them to be initially was a challenge. Thats part of the way they influenced political actions because they already had the skills but i also think the association and the way that they helped perform Community Across county lines, across the lines of cities, the ways they brought people into contact with one another forms a foundation for people to think about themselves as a collective, as a collective with political power, with the power to influence political outcomes. And i was initially sort of brought into thinking about irginia because of the readjustment. Of rnls d as a place power and reconstruction, you look at the maholm papers. They are like this amazing, you know, huge collection of records but in the records was the maholm record where he actually did a canvas of black churches and its really an invitation to think about the role of black churches in the movement. And you know, its really interesting to me, right, that he is like let me figure out where these churches are and who they are and how he might be able to mobilize them on his own political end. When i discovered that hes coming late to the game. The black churches already have these records and they already have a list of these people and know where they are and how many they are, they already have the sense of their Political Landscape. And so, you know, on the one hand mahomes acknowledges that by trying to gather this information but these churches already know. They already know who their people are. Thats the other piece of how black churches become these political agents is forming a consciousness of political power through these networks. Gregory thats great. I think for the sake of any of our audience members who dont have the Readjuster Movement down pat, how about we ask you if because its one of the like the convention, theres a series of moments in the book where we get these magnificent takes of really important and often separated in the literature moments and a key aspect of that is that you begin in slavery and go deep into the late 19th century and really have a lot to say about this incredibly volatile and interesting period in virginia politics. You might first give me an overview and then ill do a followup on what you sort of the many things that your book has to say about how we can determine and better understand or understand that moment from it. Sort of from the what happened level to help us understand mahone and then the eventual john mercer lanks intervention. Nicole sure. The Readjuster Movement, i talk about it like it was virginias reconstruction, it was the moment where a biracial coalition of black and white voters and politicians were able to gain control of the state legislature and ultimately the state patronage to expect the changes of allowing black people to sit on helping schools, they end the whipping post. And its a movement that is threatening to destroy the south because of this coalition of black and white former the vatives who threaten south and its often told the story of William Mahone who was a former confederate general who is able to mobilize the coalitions of black and white voters and, you a coalition that is built initially at the legislative level of state elected officials that voted basically the united over argument about readjustment. When i initially started to study this, it is such an arcane set of politics, how is this possible to build a coalition around these things . Ispart because the state decimated after the civil war financially decimated. Folks, thiss, white was a detriment to the state advancement, and for black folks, formerly enslaved people who would tell be responsible for taking care of it. Things like paying for education. To give asters try context where people were trying to reorganize. That is the readjustment movement. Gregory that is great. Made that great turns im sure people or to expand upon, what you gained by mapping. How mapping did not just let you show other people what you do, but it became a tool for you to discover you collected the narrate how you start to see some of the connection. Especially in the relationship, your portrayal of the mahomes movement. Your understanding of the Baptist Churches. Can you talk to us a little bit about how that interacts as an argument, and also how your argument emerged from this expertise in mapping. Nicole sure. It was interesting. There are two arguments. One has to do with politics and one has to do with mapping. Mapping, not only is it looking also inh records, but the mahomes records and that particular canvas he did, wanting to see visually where the people were. What was the landscape of the network he uncovered. To map, theble ability to look a different layers a map. Look at different expressions, whether it is for electoral returns or the landscape of things connected. It allows you to look at different reflections of relationships. Immediately be conceived in your mind about where these people are and what these networks mean. One thing i discovered by only knew aomes small segment of what black people knew about their communities. He was grasping at what was already there. It is some of what emerges. The other thing that emerges from looking at the maps has to do with the depth of the different connections within the Political Landscape. I can see where the state convention and the baptist necessarilyoes not as someone does. What is the relationship between the Virginia Baptist State Convention and the regional associations where the support is strongest. It is seeing how even smaller communities grapple with directs in a much more way. That is some of what i am able to see by mapping. Blackhomes saw what the churches in the trinitys did. In the communities did. Another thing i saw was the network. I came across letters in the archives of people writing to mahomes. Making claims on the basis of their geography, which was not like all the other letters in the archives that i read. They were not like, my husband was a supporter of the readjusters. My son and my husband are sick. It is not those kind of letters. Reflective of our community and when they sign, not just one particular location. This is a reflection of a sense of political connection that for with the geographic Political Engagement in the convention. You can see how these larger landscapes of belonging are influencing people. Necessarilyhave seen that argument had i not mapped it. Kate just to follow up on that. One question that came in in advance was, kind of the opposite. It asked, what are the downsides of the critiques of digital mapping . Were there things you hoped to do that you were not able to do . Were there limitations with the technology . Tell us about the trial and error with that. Mapping technology, i think it required me to do a is of thinking about what it to be able to understand about the landscaping using mapping. A lot of the discourse around humanities and the politics of mapping to understand how maps have been used to deny black people rights. How maps have been used to reflect and to perpetuate inequality for black people. It was really important for me, as i was using this technology, to think about what i was doing back to those Power Dynamics and trying to push that against practicesinalizing that were used for. For me, literally representing black people on the map was important to do, using the archive of black life to reflect like life was important. Trying to create a way of visualizing where black people were, that motivated me. There were definitely limitations in the way i was able to reflect that. Which is why the project was helpful. I was glad to have the my editor to do Something Like the project, which allowed me to have a version of the book that allowed me to have a map that actually moved. Layers onry to lay ,op of layers on top of layers it becomes messy and hard to see. Working through the project to come up with ways to create a moving map. Different layers and see the relationships. There are different ways to try to reflect, you still need ways to make the maps movable and make them interactive in ways that really could have pushed that against creating a map that is static, that shows you a reflection of reality and the truth. It has to be something more dynamic. That is one of the limitations. That can be overcome. There are more and more strategies to push back against those limitations. That is one i came up against. Gregory that is great. Start pulling some other questions, give you a little bit to talk about, if you mappingblackrel know. Com so people can what is there and what might be forthcoming. Bookr tell us beyond your or tell us what to expect with the event. Nicole sure, thanks. I started the project in conjunction with i was trying to find a way to do that to talk about that. It became possible through the version of the book. About fulcrum at the start, how might i have approached this digital site differently . Fulcrum allows a lot of what i imagined. Mapping blackhe religion website, which reflects more of the engagement, digital humanities, how i am trying to livese mapping of black for the project. Of blacking landscape churches, some of the changing landscape of the political transmission. That for me was the first stage of the project. The second stage as i was working through, trying to get it done, has to do with making a more interactive site. One that would allow users to do more of the kinds of things that i did, by creating maps on the difference assets of black communities. Different facets of lack communities. Facets of black communities. I think it will also allow to build and more information about some of the amenities, some of the churches, some of the individuals. More visualization of the networks involved and really pushing through that. The manuscript raises. Hopefully, be able to see even deeper connections than the one that i saw gregory . Gregory that is great. Thank you so much. Questionsling from that have been submitted. Specifically, i will lay out what connects the questions print they are each asking and somewhat different ways about how the gender dynamic was shaped by either direct power of white people and their gender dynamics or about engagement and how that can be transmitted. Malesks specifically about domination and how it was structured in the piscopo alien church. In the church. Role in attempting to tied to theirople free labor vision and to what degree are ministers and other people asserting power in the churches influenced by these admonishments coming from northerners . About the interaction between those goals and the rise of inspector billy politics and respectability politics and gender roles . Nicole where think about the way that the church arrives at the practice of excluding men from being held pregnancy, ior a connected it to the landscape of politics and respectability and trying to create a space for black men in a Political Landscape that would be respectable. There was also an element the church, from the pastors direction, trying to find their vision of a christian community. Part of that vision has practices around dealing with conflicts and community and trying to keep the comanche together to the process of engaging in conflict. In a way that minimizes it. That is some of what is influencing the gender dynamic. It dovetails with some of the claims of the bureau around trying to shape black family lives, having meant at the helm or are beingersed expressed. Some of what happens is an attempt to create community and maintain community, but at the same time being supportive of a women. Of marginalized thinking about decisionmaking practices in the Community Needs to be more robust, serving the need of the committee. Asked the question about relationships with the Episcopal Church and being affiliated with white churches shaping gender dynamics and gender roles. The meaning of the Baptist Churches,ite baptist focus on issues of sexuality. There are ways in which some of the practices dovetail, but they have context using them in that particular moment. Are working out of their own context, meaningful and useful for them in that moment. Kate to follow up another question that has to do with a term of community. I will add my own editorial comment. Community, a black Committee Formation is so important in africanAmerican History. I would imagine that we were using a term of community, you are bringing forward and interpretation of what Community Construction means and how it is done. I would like to hear you talk a term,ut your use of what is at stake in using the term, and reading about political practiced in a period of volatility when gains can be made but lost easily. Think about it in a contemporary moment, about how things are changing and what that means. Of community was my way calling out what i observed in the records and what they were ultimately able to do with what they had in the record. Knowing. Out part of what is at stake for the baptist convention, gathering names of churches, ministers and locations, it is about knowing who they are. It particular significance as baptist people in a landscape of religious possibilities and a landscape of reconstruction moments. Black people can choose anymore to worship. It is important to note who are baptist and how the community is growing. I was trying to draw attention to that as a practice. Otherwise, you could easily look at those lists and think, it is just a list. I was trying to call attention to that. Yes, it is a moment of volatility as things were changing, but it is also a asc, because they are their conventions are growing, they are documenting the transformation. Honestly, there are limitations, and anydea of politics particular individual or group of individuals were pursuing as the Political Landscape transformed. It does not tell us whether or not some of these people decided they want to stay aligned with the readjusters as the Readjuster Movement was pushing against black men Holding Political office, black men rising to the level of running for congress. It does not tell us that. There are limits to that, knowing who belonged in the community or who is part of the community. It was an important practice to call attention to. That is what they were doing when they gathered their lists. A way to think about Institution Building and using the resources you have available to develop a story and a history. People who have done research on history about africanamericans have seen lists and wondered what to do with them what can i use this for . The way you are describing it, using it to think about how institutions and networks were created. Greg, what dont you go ahead. Gregory one thing you gestured to in that answer and something i want to ask you to reflect upon, having written a tremendous work of history, now talk about the present. How you understand both the relationship of the topics you studied to the present, and about the relationship of this engagement of religion, politics and Community Formation to create political change. How you might understand that now, as the questioner asked specifically about the period shaped by the movement for black lives. Nicole a couple of ways. First, one of the things i definitely had in mind with this work was thinking about black Church Community is. I came from one that was very politically engaged, for most of caused me to has question the relationship between religion and power and politics, and to think about how black Church Communities engage politically. And about the way black Church Communities engage gender dynamics and how they think about themselves as political actors. Momentsar political blacklock churches and churches and what is this particular moment call on us to do . Black churches changed throughout time. What are black churches being called to do at this particular moment . People automatically assume churches would be engaged in particular ways. I think what this study, i hope, shows is that churches actually responded to the moment, they were engaged in the moment and making political interventions in the moment they were in. That would be one of the first things. As we think about the movement for black lives, one thing that is clear or this moment i am starting in reconstruction, that is really evident today, is this whole discussion about black lives matter, when i am teaching 19th century or africanAmerican History survey, or religion and politics, the argument that black lives matter has been made forever, right . From the first people being brought here to the present. You can see it moving powerfully. My book covers the way that black churches and black people are pushing for the right for civil liberty. To have the freedom to worship how they wish, to have equity, justice and freedom. The issue that comes up again and again why does reconstruction fail . Because there was a lack of investment in the belief of black freedom and the value of black lives as lives. If there is anything we can gain from this study, black lives matter in this moment it is not just for black people to make that argument, but for society to not just acknowledge but deeply except it accept it. Black church committee, a particular moment to be engaged in, to be thoughtful about. Analysis soritical it is not just about black people, black men, black women, but it is intersectional about how those categories relate to each other. Black lives matter is a fundamental concept that has to be embraced when it comes to this study in somebody more. Dr. Turner, i think that is a perfect ending point. I think that was a beautiful way of bringing your work during the reconstruction period forward. Go, i want to thank our participants who are here. Want to thank you for being here. Those who helped us get set up. Much for making this happen. Nicole, thank you for this wonderful work. Nicole thank you all so very much. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] American History tv is on social media. Anhistory. csp next on the civil war, and interpretation and education chief talks about the involving evolving the role of Union ColonelJoshua Lawrence chamberlain. Gettysburg College Institute provided the video for this event. We have a really great topic tonight because it is a topic that a lot of people visit gettysburg to talk about, to see and experience, that is interpretation at little round and Joshua Lawrence chamberlain. Why did we choose