African-American History Month: Book Reading and Discussion

Starts: February 25, 2009 at 5:00 PM
Ends: February 25, 2009 at 6:00 PM
Location: Law School, room 134
Event URL: http://law.wm.edu/news/events/2009/unspeakable-the-story-of-junius-wilson.php
Contact: Call 221-1840.

Summary

Susan Burch of the Smithsonian Institution, and co-author with Hannah Joyner of the book, "Unspeakable:The Story of Junius Wilson," will host a book reading and discussion in honor of African-American History Month.

Full Description

Although neither a criminal nor mentally ill, Junius Wilson spent seventy-six years of his life in a North Carolina state institution for the criminally insane. Castrated and forced to do manual labor on behalf of a public institution, Wilson endured countless hardships, overt and subtle, in cultural isolation as an African American who happened also to be deaf. 

American History said of the Burch-Joyner book: "A heart-rending story of race and disability in the Jim Crow South." Susan Burch also is the author of Signs of Resistance: American Deaf Cultural History, 1900 to World War II. 

This event, sponsored by the Law School is free and open to the public.