February 2019 Noontime Public Programs at the National Archives
Press Release · Tuesday, February 5, 2019

Washington, DC

National Archives noontime programs in February include the February 27 national book launch of Illusions of Emancipation: The Pursuit of Freedom and Equality in the Twilight of Slavery and will mark the 50th anniversary of  Shirley Chisholm’s historic entry into the U.S. House of Representatives a screening of  the 2004 documentary Chisholm ’72: Unbought and Unbossed on February 14.

These programs are free and open to the public and will be held at noon in the William G. McGowan Theater of the National Archives Museum in Washington, DC.  Attendees should use the Special Events entrance on Constitution Avenue at 7th Street, NW.  Metro accessible on the Yellow and Green lines, Archives/Navy Memorial/Penn Quarter station. Reservations are recommended and can be made online. For those without reservations, seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. The Theater doors will open 45 minutes prior to the start of the program. Late seating will not be permitted 20 minutes after the program begins.

BOOK TALK & SIGNING: Bluff City: The Secret Life of Photographer Ernest Withers
Tuesday, February 5
Reserve a seat; watch the live stream on our YouTube Channel
Ernest Withers may not be a familiar name to most Americans, but they know his photographs, which are some of the most iconic images of the civil rights movement. In Bluff City, author Preston Lauterbach examines the career of Withers, an African-American photographer who traveled extensively with Martin Luther King, Jr. What no one knew was that Withers was an informant for the FBI.     
 

BOOK TALK & SIGNING: The Girls Next Door: Bringing the Home Front to the Front Lines
Monday, February 11
Reserve a seat; watch the live stream on our YouTube Channel
In her latest book, The Girls Next Door, professor Kara Dixon Vuic tells the story of the intrepid young women who volunteered to help and entertain American servicemen fighting overseas, from World War I through the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. This story of the women, unknown and famous. who talked and listened and danced and sang, adds an intimate chapter to the history of war and its ties to life in peacetime.

DOCUMENTARY FILM SCREENING: Chisholm ’72: Unbought and Unbossed
Thursday, February 14
Reserve a seat
In conjunction with the featured document display in the East Rotunda Gallery, a 2004 documentary takes an in-depth look at the 1972 Presidential campaign of Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Congress and the first to seek nomination for the presidency. A film by Shola Lynch.  (77 minutes.) Made possible in part by the National Archives Foundation, through the generous support of The Boeing Company.

BOOK TALK & SIGNING: Lady First: The World of First Lady Sarah Polk
Friday, February 15
Reserve a seat; watch the live stream on our YouTube Channel
As the women’s rights convention was taking place in 1848, First Lady Sarah Childress Polk was wielding influence unprecedented for a woman. History remembers those women at the convention, but it has all but forgotten Sarah Polk. With her latest book, Lady First, professor Amy S. Greenberg brings her story into vivid focus as a remarkably influential First Lady, brilliant master of politics, and an important player in American feminism.

NATIONAL BOOK LAUNCH
BOOK TALK & SIGNING: Illusions of Emancipation: The Pursuit of Freedom and Equality in the Twilight of Slavery
Wednesday, February 27
Reserve a seat; watch the live stream on our YouTube Channel
In Illusions of Emancipation, professor Joseph P. Reidy discusses how emancipation was not only a product of Lincoln’s proclamation or Confederate defeat. It was a process. Slavery did not die quietly or quickly, nor did it fulfill every dream of the enslaved or their allies. It unfolded unevenly bringing drastic change, sensations of disorientation, and lives disrupted, but through it all, the former enslaved maintained the ideal that the struggle for freedom would result in victory.