The year 2019 is a year of commemorations. In 1619, 20 enslaved Africans were imported into Virginia in an act that many people recognize as the beginning of the European slave trade to the Americas. This 400th anniversary is being widely observed. And in 1969, following the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King in 1968, many of the African American Studies programs in the US were initiated. Lectures by Doctors Dana Williams, Christopher Span, and Ronald Bailey on interdisciplinary topics such as “Toni Morrison and Understanding Slavery: Perspective of a Literary Scholar,” “Of the White Lion,” and “‘Those Valuable People the Africans’: the Slavery Trade and the Development of Industrial Capitalism in the West.” Moderated by Dr. Candice Jenkins of the English and African American Studies Departments at UIUC. Find out more here.