University Libraries to Host Talk on Slaves in Mississippi during the Civil War

News item published on: 2014-09-05 09:34:34

The University Libraries at the University of Southern Mississippi will sponsor a talk on the slavery in Civil War Mississippi on Wednesday, September 10, 2014, 6-7 p.m. in Cook Library Room 123.

When the Civil War engulfed Mississippi, the majority of people who lived in the state were enslaved blacks.This talk looks behind Confederate lines to examine the roles they played in the struggle as farmhands and factory workers, military laborers, rebels and runaways, and as soldiers. It reveals how they understood the war's causes and consequences, and what they did to shape its outcome.

Max Grivno is an associate professor of history at the University of Southern Mississippi. He specializes in the Old South, slavery, labor history, and Mississippi history. Grivno’s first book, Gleanings of Freedom: Free Labor and Slavery along the Mason-Dixon Line, 1790-1860 was published in 2011. He is currently writing From Bondage to Freedom Slavery in Mississippi, 1690-1865 and is researching another book, Bandits, Klansmen, Rioters, and Strikers: Violence in the Alabama-Mississippi Black Belt, 1830-1917.

In collaboration with the Library of Hattiesburg, Petal and Forrest County, University Libraries will offer scholarly presentations and documentaries that feature riveting, never before seen footage illustrating the history of civil rights in America through September as part of the Created Equal project.

Created Equal: America’s Civil Rights Struggle is an initiative of the NEH that uses the power of documentary films to encourage community discussion of America’s civil rights history. NEH has partnered with the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History to develop programmatic and support materials for the recipients of the grant.

For more information about this talk or the lecture series, contact Jennifer Brannock at or 601.266.4347.