Discover U.S. history through our curated selection of texts and discuss how our nation's history and our understandings of the past inform the present.
This month's text is the Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America by Ira Berlin. Please register online here.
From the publisher: "Many Thousands Gone traces the evolution of Black society from the first arrivals in the early seventeenth century through the Revolution. In telling their story, Ira Berlin, a leading historian of southern and African-American life, reintegrates [enslaved peoples] into the history of the American working class and into the tapestry of our nation. ... In this fresh and vivid interpretation, Berlin demonstrates that the meaning of slavery and of race itself was continually renegotiated and redefined, as the nation lurched toward political and economic independence and grappled with the Enlightenment ideals that had inspired its birth."
Schedule:
- 5:30-6 p.m. (optional): Hear a summary of the text and additional historical context - ideal for participants who didn't read the book or who want a refresher
- 6-7 p.m.: Participate in a guided discussion of the selected text
- 7-7:30 p.m. (optional): Socialize and enjoy light refreshments
Ages 16 and up.
Fee: $8 (resident) / $10 (non-resident). Drop-ins are welcome as space permits.
Call the museum at (847) 929-8001 or email eengland@skokieparks.org with questions.
Next month's texts will be Cold War, Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy by Mary L. Duziak and The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson.