Vanderbilt Professor to Give Hartman Hotz Lecture on Underground Railroad

Courtesy of Vanderbilt University

Richard Blackett, Vanderbilt University

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Richard J. M. Blackett, the Andrew Jackson professor of history at Vanderbilt University, will present "The Underground Railroad and the Struggle Against Slavery" at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 7, in Giffels Auditorium as part of the Hartman Hotz Lectures in Law and Liberal Arts. 

Blackett is an authority on the abolitionist movement in the United States, particularly its transatlantic connections.  His most important publications include Building an Antislavery Wall: Black Americans in the Atlantic Abolitionist Movement, 1830-1860 (1983), Beating Against the Barriers: Biographical Essays in Nineteenth-Century Afro-American History (1986), Divided Hearts: Britain and the American Civil War (2001) and Making Freedom: The Underground Railroad and the Politics of Slavery (2013).

Blackett holds a Bachelor of Arts in international relations from the University of Keele, England and a Master of Arts in American studies from the University of Manchester, England.  He taught at the University of Pittsburgh, Indiana University and the University of Houston before joining the history faculty at Vanderbilt in 2002.

This event is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by the J. William College of Arts and Sciences, the University of Arkansas School of Law and the Hartman Hotz Trust Committee.  Dr. and Mrs. Palmer Hotz of Foster City, California, established the University of Arkansas Hartman Hotz Lectures in Law and the Liberal Arts to honor the memory of his brother, Hartman Hotz. 

Hartman Hotz was a graduate in history from Fulbright College.  After graduating from Yale University Law School, he joined the faculty of the University of Arkansas School of Law, where he made significant contributions to the study of law.