Dunaway to discuss black slavery in Appalachia at UVa-Wise on Oct. 1

Wilma A. Dunaway, associate professor in the School of Public and International Affairs at Virginia Tech, will speak on “Appalachian Revisionism: Black Slavery in Appalachia,” at The University of Virginia’s College at Wise as part of the 2007 Special Lecture/Faculty Colloquia Series.

The lecture will be held Monday, Oct. 1, at 1 p.m. in the Chapel of All Faiths. The event is free and open to the public.

Dunaway was born into an interracial family of sharecroppers in eastern Tennessee. With a white mother and a Cherokee father, Dunaway and her siblings grew up in southern Appalachia during a time when the region was legally segregated. Her research came about as a result of growing up poor and her family’s struggles against racial and economic discrimination.

After earning her bachelor’s degree in 1966, Dunaway spent more than 20 years working in civil rights and community service organizations in the Appalachian region. Dunaway’s dissertation concerning the incorporation of southern Appalachia into the capitalist world economy was awarded a national Woodrow Wilson Fellowship and the Distinguished Dissertation Award from the American Sociological Association.

She is a specialist in international political economy, Appalachian studies, slavery, Native American studies, gender inequality and social movements. Since 1996, she has published six books, and her interdisciplinary work has appeared in numerous history and social science journals.

Dunaway has received two Weatherford Awards for her books about the Appalachian region. Early next year, Cambridge University Press will publish her next book about 19th century women.

Posted Semptember 25, 2007