Join the Department of History for "Murder on the Mississippi: The Shocking Crimes that Shaped Abraham Lincoln," a talk by scholar Saladin Ambar. 

Ambar is a senior scholar at Eagleton's Center on American Governor and Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University -- New Brunswick. He is the author of six books on American political history.

"Murder on the Mississippi: The Shocking Crimes that Shaped Abraham Lincoln" is a new, fresh investigation of antebellum politics and the era’s foremost champion of equality before the law. On April 28, 1836, a young free Black man was falsely arrested. On the way to jail, Francis McIntosh, told that his fate was prison or death, tried to escape, killing a sheriff’s deputy in his failed attempt. A crowd lynched him, chaining him to a tree and burning him alive. In this talk, Ambar will explain how the incident directly inspired Lincoln’s first major political address, in which the future president spoke of the fracturing of civic order on the frontier and, in that “growing lawlessness,” the threat to democracy.

All are welcome. Lunch is provided for pre-registered attendees. Link to register: https://forms.as.uky.edu/rsvp-history-lecture-saladin-ambar