“Beyond 12 Years a Slave: The Influential Slave Narratives of Tar Heels Moses Roper, Harriet Jacobs, and William H. Singleton” Presentation To Be Held At Barton College

WILSON, N.C. — March 21, 2016 — Barton College’s Willis N. Hackney Library will welcome North Carolina Humanities Council Road Scholar Laurel C. Sneed on Thursday, March 31, for the presentation “Beyond 12 Years a Slave: The Influential Slave Narratives of Tar Heels Moses Roper, Harriet Jacobs, and William H. Singleton.” The event will begin at 7 p.m. in the library and will be open to the public at no charge.

Hear the remarkable stories of three courageous African American Tar Heels who escaped to freedom and authored slave narratives: Harriet Jacobs of Edenton, Moses Roper of Caswell County, and William H. Singleton of New Bern. From a historian’s point of view, Sneed will discuss how these slave narrative authors left their mark on the North American Slave Narrative Literary Tradition.

Slave narratives’ mission was to convert the hearts and minds of readers so they would become supportive of the anti-slavery cause. As the narratives are often dismissed as “anti-slavery propaganda,” Sneed will share what research has revealed about their veracity. She will also explore the book “12 Years a Slave” by Solomon Northup, now a highly acclaimed film of the same name, and how it compares to these three Tar Heel narratives.

This project is made possible by funding from the North Carolina Humanities Council, a statewide nonprofit and affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The North Carolina Humanities Council has been offering speakers, free of charge, to public audiences since 1990. All presentations are grounded in the humanities. Their catalog of Road Scholars includes over 70 speakers whose lectures focus on issues of history, literature, philosophy, ethics, religious studies, linguistics, jurisprudence, history and criticism of the arts, sociology, and certain aspects of social science. For information about applying to host a Road Scholars presentation, please contact the Program Coordinator, Caitlin Patton, at 704-687-1521 or cpatton@nchumanities.org.

For more information about this event, please contact George Loveland, director of Hackney Library at Barton College, at 252-399-6501 or gwloveland@barton.edu.

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