Book Talk with Melvin Patrick Ely | A Terrible Intimacy
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Book Talk with Melvin Patrick Ely | A Terrible Intimacy
Wednesday, October 14, 2026 | 6:00 - 7:30pm
Free, but registration is required at https://lva-virginia.libcal.com/event/17238876
Limited free parking is available underneath the Library at 800 East Broad Street. Seating in the Lecture Hall is available on a first come, first served basis.
Join historian Melvin Patrick Ely, Ph.D., for a thought-provoking program exploring his new book, “A Terrible Intimacy: Interracial Life in the Slaveholding South.” In his book, Ely explores six criminal cases in one Virginia county in the years preceding the Civil War. Witnesses of both races describe a startling variety of encounters between white and Black people that reconfigure the binary terrain of “master-slave” relations.
Ely is the author of “Israel on the Appomattox: A Southern Experiment in Black Freedom from the 1790s Through the Civil War,” which won the Bancroft, Beveridge and Wesley-Long prizes, and “The Adventures of Amos ‘n’ Andy: A Social History of an American Phenomenon.” He’s a co-author of “Un/Bound: Free Black Virginians, 1619-1865.” A retired William & Mary history professor, Ely previously taught history and American studies at Yale.
A book signing will follow the program.
For more information, contact [email protected].
Wednesday, October 14, 2026 | 6:00 - 7:30pm
Free, but registration is required at https://lva-virginia.libcal.com/event/17238876
Limited free parking is available underneath the Library at 800 East Broad Street. Seating in the Lecture Hall is available on a first come, first served basis.
Join historian Melvin Patrick Ely, Ph.D., for a thought-provoking program exploring his new book, “A Terrible Intimacy: Interracial Life in the Slaveholding South.” In his book, Ely explores six criminal cases in one Virginia county in the years preceding the Civil War. Witnesses of both races describe a startling variety of encounters between white and Black people that reconfigure the binary terrain of “master-slave” relations.
Ely is the author of “Israel on the Appomattox: A Southern Experiment in Black Freedom from the 1790s Through the Civil War,” which won the Bancroft, Beveridge and Wesley-Long prizes, and “The Adventures of Amos ‘n’ Andy: A Social History of an American Phenomenon.” He’s a co-author of “Un/Bound: Free Black Virginians, 1619-1865.” A retired William & Mary history professor, Ely previously taught history and American studies at Yale.
A book signing will follow the program.
For more information, contact [email protected].
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Where is it happening?
800 East Broad Street, Richmond, VA, United States, Virginia 23219
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
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Host or PublisherLibrary of Virginia
