The University will join a coalition of historical organizations to host the two-day public symposium Abolitionism in Black and White: The Anti-Slavery Community of Boston and Cambridge.

Dramatic reading

The program, to be presented at the C. Walsh Theatre, will begin at 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 23, with a staged reading from a new play about abolitionist, fugitive slave, and author Harriet Jacobs, to be presented by the Underground Railway Theater.

A panel discussion following the reading, with Dean Kenneth S. Greenberg moderating, will focus on slave narratives and how to employ drama to communicate this history. African-American playwright Lydia Diamond of Boston University and Yale University historian David Blight will lead the discussion.

The Friday-evening program is free and open to the public.

Daylong program on anti-slavery movement

On Saturday, Oct. 24, historians James Oliver Horton of George Washington University and Lois E. Horton of George Mason University will open the symposium at 9 a.m. with an overview of the anti-slavery movement.

Harvard University’s John Stauffer and Sandra Sandiford Young of Boston College will discuss the significance of the abolitionist community – black and white – in greater Boston. Other sessions will examine anti-slavery music, abolitionism in popular culture and women in the movement.

Award-winning author David Blight of Yale will provide the closing keynote address.

Zoe Trodd of the University of North Carolina and state Rep. Byron Rushing will conclude the program with a discussion of the relevance of slavery and anti-slavery today.

Registration is required for the daylong Saturday program.