Historian Keisha Blain will speak as part of the Votes for Women series on Tuesday, Oct. 25, at 5 p.m. in the main auditorium of the downtown Nashville Public Library, 615 Church St.
Vanderbilt’s Margaret Cuninggim Women’s Center is a sponsor of the Nashville Public Library’s Votes for Women series.
Blain will discuss her latest book, Until I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer’s Enduring Message to America. In the book, Blain examines the persistence of issues such as voter suppression, police violence and economic inequality. Before the event, the library’s Votes for Women Room will be open for a self-guided tour along with a reception and book signing.
A professor of history and Africana studies at Brown University, Blain is a historian of the 20th century with broad interests and specializations in research on African American history, the modern African diaspora and women’s and gender studies. She is a 2022 Guggenheim Fellow and a class of 2022 Carnegie Fellow.
Blain is the author of Set the World on Fire: Black Nationalist Women and the Global Struggle for Freedom (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018). The book won the 2018 First Book Award from the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians and the 2019 Darlene Clark Hine Award from the Organization of American Historians. Her second book, Until I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer’s Enduring Message to America (Beacon Press, 2021), was nominated for an NAACP Image Award and was a finalist for the 2022 National Book Critics Circle Award.