Blair LM Kelley presents BLACK FREEDOM, with Mark Anthony Neal
Schedule
Tue, 16 Jun, 2026 at 05:30 pm
UTC-04:00Location
752 Martin Luther King Jr Blvd (Historic Airport Rd, Next to The Root Cellar), Chapel Hill, NC, United States, North Carolina 27514 | Chapel Hill, NC
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The first fully illustrated history of Juneteenth and other Emancipation Day celebrations, told through photographs, art, and an engrossing narrative from an award-winning historian. Flyleaf will offer seating for up to 120 in-person guests, with priority access given to folks who purchase the book. Please indicate in the "Customer Comments" field (at checkout) if you’d like 1-2 seats held for you at the event!
If you do not plan to attend the event but would like a copy of the book signed for pickup or shipping, please use the comments field at checkout to specify your personalization preference (to your name, to another name, or just the author's signature).
For more than 150 years, Black communities have gathered to honor freedom, resilience, and the ongoing struggle for true liberation. While Juneteenth has recently gained wider recognition, it was one of many Emancipation Day traditions celebrated across the United States. These observances were spaces of joy, remembrance, and resistance—even as the fight for full freedom was unfinished.
This volume brings together stirring essays and striking images from Juneteenth and beyond, offering a sweeping portrait of how Black people have created and sustained rituals of remembrance, a testament to the generations who, through celebration and storytelling, demanded that their contributions to the making of America be fully recognized.
Blair LM Kelley is an award-winning author, historian, and scholar of the African American experience. She is also the president and director of the National Humanities Center, the only independent center for advanced study in the world dedicated exclusively to the humanities. Kelley is the author of three books. Black Freedom: A Visual History of Juneteenth and Emancipation Days, Right to Ride: Streetcar Boycotts and African American Citizenship which was awarded the Letitia Woods Brown Memorial Book Prize and Black Folk: The Roots of the Black Working Class, which received the 2024 Brooklyn Library Book Award, 2024 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Book Award, 2024 Philip Taft Labor History Prize, and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award in History.
Mark Anthony Neal is James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of African & African American Studies, Professor of English, and Professor of Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies at Duke University. Neal is the author of seven books including Save a Seat for Me: Notes on American Fatherhood (Simon & Schuster, 2026), Looking for Leroy: Illegible Black Masculinities, Black Ephemera: The Crisis and Challenge of the Musical Archive, which won the 2023 PROSE Award for books on Music and Performing Arts. Neal is currently Chair of Duke University’s Academic Council and the Executive Committee of the Academic Council (ECAC), and the former chair of the Department of African & African American Studies (2017-2025). Neal is the founding host of the Award-winning video podcast Left of Black, produced in collaboration with the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute at Duke.
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Where is it happening?
752 Martin Luther King Jr Blvd (Historic Airport Rd, Next to The Root Cellar), Chapel Hill, NC, United States, North Carolina 27514Event Location & Nearby Stays:
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