Pulitzer Prize-nominated historian Vernon Burton gave the first of two keynote addresses yesterday at Augusta University on the first day of an annual conference that considers nineteenth century journalism history .
Burton’s address nominally dealt with Reconstruction and the Supreme Court’s decisions that delayed, postponed or ingored the provisions of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. Those amendments all function to extend equal rights to all Americans, or, at the time, all male Americans.
This 32nd Annual Symposium on the Nineteenth Century Press, the Civil War, and Free Expression is being held at Augusta University for the second year, after being held for its first 30 years at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
At this symposium, which is set to run through Saturday, scholars, historians and enthusiasts will have the chance to explore the critical role of media in the 19th century.
The symposium is being recorded by C-SPAN (Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network), and the lectures will be available for online viewing on their website in coming weeks.
The symposium is directed by Crompton Burton, executive director of the Society of Nineteenth Century Historians, who has been involved with the event since 2001.
“There’s this connection between journalism, journalism history, the Civil War, free expression, that I think is very captivating,” said Burton. “It really sparks the imagination…there’s a lot of great scholarship that’s going to be presented this weekend.”
Featured lectures
Burton, an esteemed historian, was one of two featured speakers participating in the symposium, delivered a lecture entitled “Lincoln, Liberty, Reconstruction, and the Supreme Court’s Deferral of Justice in the Nineteenth Century,” which emphasized the impact of Supreme Court decisions that dealt with Reconstruction Era-legal issues and the role of journalism during that time.
Many newspapers were complicit in legal actions designed to deny rights to Black Americans that had been granted in the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments that were ratified following the Civil War, Burton told the audience.
Burton had authored or edited 14 books, including In My Father’s House Are Many Mansions: Family and Community in Edgefield, South Carolina, which was submitted for consideration for a Pulitzer Prize. He also authored The Age of Lincoln and Justice Deferred: Race and the Supreme Court with civil rights lawyer Armand Derfner.
Burton was born in Royston, Ga., and grew up in Ninety-Six, S.C., where he and his wife Georgeann live now. He is a professor of history and director of the Cyber Institute at Clemson University.
This particular keynote is known as the Hazel Dicken-Garcia Distinguished Lecture, in honor of the late Hazel Dicken-Garcia who was an original founder of the symposium and a journalism historian at the University of Minnesota. This lecture will be presented at all subsequent symposiums in the future.
A second notable speaker, historian Harold Holzer, is set to speak at 3 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 8, in a lecture entitled “The Press in Chancellorsville: The Battle for the German-American Reputation.” Friday’s lectures will take place at Augusta University’s Student Activity Center Coffeehouse from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
The symposium is co-sponsored by Augusta University’s Pamplin College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences and the Society of Nineteenth Century Historians.
Saturday’s lectures will be held in the campus’s coffeehouse starting at 9 a.m., and will conclude at 3 p.m. with a tour of the Augusta Canal Museum and a dinner. All sessions are free and open to the public.
