Wilma King Click on image to download print-quality version

GRANTHAM, Pa. (April 3, 2007) — Wilma King, Strickland professor of history at the University of Missouri, will lecture at Messiah College as a part of the college’s American Democracy Lecture Series. The lecture, sponsored by the Center for Public Humanities and the department of history, will be held in Hostetter Chapel on the college’s Grantham campus at 7 p.m. on April 25. King will be speaking on “The Essence of Liberty, Citizenship and Democracy for Free Black Women in the Slave Era.” The lecture is free and open to the public.

King is a celebrated author in both African-American and women’s history, and the content of her lecture has developed from her extensive research on free African-American women prior to emancipation in 1865.

Messiah College’s American Democracy Lecture Series annually invites a distinguished speaker to campus in order to speak on pressing issues related to American society and politics. Speakers in the past have included Wilfred McClay from the University of Tennessee; Harry S. Stout of Yale University; Peter S. Onuf from the University of Virginia; and James M. McPherson of Princeton University.

Messiah College, a private Christian college of the liberal and applied arts and sciences, enrolls nearly 2,800 undergraduate students in 60 majors. Established in 1909, the primary campus is located in Grantham, Pa., near the state capital of Harrisburg. A satellite campus affiliated with Temple University is located in Philadelphia.