Lunchtime Lecture: Finding Anna Murray Douglass with Dr. Celeste M. Bernier and Dr. Bill E. Lawson
Wednesday, September 9
11 AM–12:30 PM
Reception Hall
Lunchtime Lecture: Finding Anna Murray Douglass with Dr. Celeste-Marie Bernier and Dr. Bill E. Lawson
CAM Members: $35 | Not Yet Members: $45
Admission includes lunch by CAM Café.
Join CAM for a special lunchtime lecture with scholars Dr. Celeste-Marie Bernier and Dr. Bill E. Lawson as they bring the remarkable life and legacy of Anna Murray Douglass to the forefront.
Drawing on more than one hundred surviving letters, essays, speeches, biographies, and memorials, Douglass Family Lives: The Anna Murray and Frederick Douglass Family Biography and Collected Works reveals Anna Murray Douglass as far more than the wife of Frederick Douglass. She was his co-revolutionary and a freedom fighter in her own right.
Bernier and Lawson will explore the complexities of Anna’s life and her critical role in the struggle for freedom, highlighting her often-overlooked contributions as an educator, activist, intellectual, political thinker, artist, philosopher, and strategist. Throughout their lives, Anna and Frederick worked side by side to advance the causes of liberation and equality.
The Douglass Family Lives series also illuminates the lives and work of the wider Douglass family, including their children Rosetta, Lewis Henry, Frederick Jr., Charles Remond, and Annie, each of whom carried forward the family’s legacy of courage and activism.
Admission includes lunch by CAM Café featuring a selection of handcrafted sandwiches, house chips, fresh fruit, and warm cookies for dessert.
About Dr. Celeste-Marie Bernier
Celeste-Marie Bernier, PhD, is Professor of United States and Atlantic Studies at the University of Edinburgh. She is the author, editor, and curator of more than 85 books, exhibitions, essays, and digital educational resources, including the Douglass Family Lives: Anna Murray and Frederick Douglass Family Biography and Collected Works series.
Bernier is a Senior Advisor at Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives in Rochester, New York, and an Honorary Member of the Frederick Douglass Honor Society in Easton, Maryland. She lives in Carlisle, UK.
About Dr. Bill E. Lawson
Bill E. Lawson is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at the University of Memphis. In 1980, he became the first African American to receive a PhD in philosophy from the University of North Carolina.
His academic specialties include African American philosophy and social and political philosophy. His published works include Pragmatism and the Problem of Race, Faces of Environmental Racism, Frederick Douglass: A Critical Reader, and Between Slavery and Freedom, along with numerous scholarly articles.
Lawson has also collaborated with Celeste-Marie Bernier on research exploring Frederick Douglass’ writings on photography and his use of the photographic image. He has testified before a U.S. Congressional subcommittee on welfare reform and was a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Liverpool. Lawson is a U.S. Army Vietnam veteran and a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.
