Christy S. Coleman, chief executive officer of the American Civil War Museum in Richmond, Va., will present a free, public talk entitled “Reclaiming Black History in the American Civil War,” on Wednesday, Feb. 6, at 7 p.m. in the Great Room, Hildreth-Mirza Humanities Center. Her talk is part of the Bucknell Griot Institute Spring 2019 Lecture and Performance Series, “The Black Unfamiliar in the 21st Century,” and co-sponsored by the University’s Department of History.
Coleman began her career as living history interpreter at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation while she was a college student. She rose through the ranks, eventually being named director of programs, making her responsible for all daily and special public programming at Colonial Williamsburg.
From 1999 to 2005, she served as president and CEO of the nation’s largest African-American museum, the Charles H. Wright Museum of African-American History in Detroit. In 2008, she accepted the position of president and CEO of the American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar — the nation’s first museum to explore the causes, course and legacies of the Civil War from Union, Confederate and African-American perspectives. She has lectured extensively and consulted with some of the country’s leading museums, written a number of articles for scholarly and public history publications as well as being an award-winning screenwriter for educational television. Her most recent work Freedom Bound won an Emmy in 2009 for Outstanding Educational Programming for the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
Coleman was included last year on Time magazine’s “31 People Changing the South” list.
Additional information on the talk may be obtained by contacting the Griot Institute at griot@bucknell.edu, or 570-577-2123.