Maryland Humanities Co-Hosts Author of Book on Lawsuits from Enslaved Families of Prince George’s County
(Baltimore) – In partnership with the Virginia Center for the Book at Virginia Humanities, Maryland Humanities co-hosts William G. Thomas III to share the intricate and intensely human story of enslaved families of Prince George’s County, Maryland and the hundreds of lawsuits they brought against slavery. His book, A Question of Freedom: The Families Who Challenged Slavery from the Nation’s Founding to the Civil War, was recently announced the winner of the 2021 Neiman Foundation/Columbia School of Journalism Mark Lynton Prize in History.
On May 3 at 7:00 p.m., Thomas will discuss the longest and most complex legal challenge to slavery in American history, lawyers who supported the enslaved families, the slaveholders and others who defended slavery, and its present-day legacies. He will be in conversation with Omar Eaton-Martínez, Assistant Division Chief, Historical Resources for Prince George’s County Parks and Recreation.
Participants can learn more about the free virtual event here and register here. The book is available through Maryland Humanities’ official event bookseller, The UVA Bookstores.
About the Book
For over seventy years and five generations, the enslaved families of Prince George’s County, Maryland, filed hundreds of suits for their freedom against a powerful circle of slaveholders, taking their cause all the way to the Supreme Court. Between 1787 and 1861, these lawsuits challenged the legitimacy of slavery in American law and put slavery on trial in the nation’s capital.
Piecing together evidence once dismissed in court and buried in the archives, William Thomas tells an intricate and intensely human story of the enslaved families (the Butlers, Queens, Mahoneys, and others), their lawyers (among them a young Francis Scott Key), and the slaveholders who fought to defend slavery, beginning with the Jesuit priests who held some of the largest plantations in the nation and founded a college at Georgetown. A Question of Freedom asks us to reckon with the moral problem of slavery and its legacies in the present day.
About the Author
William G. Thomas III is author of A Question of Freedom, is the Angle Chair in the Humanities and Professor of History at the University of Nebraska. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow and a Lincoln Prize Finalist, and was co-founder and director of the Virginia Center for Digital History at the University of Virginia.
About the Moderator
Omar Eaton-Martínez, Assistant Division Chief, Historical Resources for Prince George’s County Parks & Recreation, is a museum leader whose professional vision is to transform communities through co-stewardship of narratives in the spirit of diversity, equity, accessibility and inclusion. He stands in the gap, to advocate for the unheard and the unseen through public history, art, culture and science.
About Maryland Center for the Book
The Maryland Center for the Book (MCFB)—an affiliate of the national Center for the Book in the Library of Congress—develops and supports literary programs and outreach activities that engage citizens across Maryland in literature and reading. As a program of Maryland Humanities, MCFB highlights our region’s literary heritage and calls attention to the importance of books, reading, literacy, and libraries. Connect with the Maryland Center for the Book on Facebook.