Description

VCU Libraries celebrates the release of the autobiography of noted civil-rights activist Edward H. Peeples, Jr., Ph.D., with an evening panel discussion featuring Peeples in a conversation on his life's mission with his book contributors, Nancy MacLean, Ph.D., and James H. Hershman, Jr., Ph.D., moderated by John Kneebone, Ph.D. A book signing and reception follow the event.

This event is free and open to all, but please register. Parking is available for a fee in the West Broad Street, West Main Street and West Cary Street parking decks. If special accommodations are needed, or to register offline, please contact the VCU Libraries Events Office at (804) 828-0593.

About the Book

Scalawag: A White Southerner's Journey Through Segregation to Human Rights Activism is the autobiography of Edward H. Peeples, Jr., Ph.D. It tells the story of a white working-class youth who became an unlikely civil-rights activist. Born in 1935 in Richmond, where he was taken to segregated churches and sent to segregated schools, he was taught the ethos and lore of white supremacy by the white adults around him. But by age nineteen, he had become what the these people called a "traitor to the race."

At Richmond Professional Institute (the forerunner to VCU on the Monroe Park Campus), he was encouraged by a lone teacher to think critically. He found his way to the black freedom struggle and began a long career of activism. He challenged racism in his U.S. Navy unit and engaged in sit-ins and community organizing. Later, as a VCU professor, he agitated for good jobs, health care and decent housing for all; pushed for the creation of courses in African American studies at VCU in the early 1970s; and worked toward equal treatment for women, prison reform and more.

Covering fifty years' participation in the civil-rights movement, his gripping story brings to life an unsung activist culture to which countless forgotten individuals contributed, over time expanding their commitment from civil rights to other causes.

About the Speakers

Author: Edward H. Peeples, Jr., Ph.D., is associate professor emeritus of preventive medicine and community health at VCU.

Book contributor: Nancy MacLean, Ph.D., is the William H. Chafe professor of history and public policy at Duke University and author of The American Women's Movement, 1945–2000 and Freedom Is Not Enough: The Opening of the American Workplace, among other publications.

Book contributor: James H. Hershman, Jr., Ph.D., is a lecturer in the Georgetown University Graduate Liberal Studies program. Formerly, he was senior fellow in the Georgetown University Government Affairs Institute.

Moderator: John Kneebone, Ph.D., is chair of the VCU Department of History and associate professor of history. He also coordinates the public-history component of the history graduate program. He has taught at Princeton and Harvard Universities and at the University of Alabama. For 16 years, he was an editor and then director of Publications and Education Services at the Library of Virginia. He is the author of Southern Liberal Journalists and the Issue of Race, 1920–1944.

Image: Edward H. Peeples photo, courtesy of the author