Lincoln and Emancipation & Massachusetts Civil War Soldiers presented July 4th at Quabbin Civil War Remembrance Day

James Smethurst

Lincoln and Emancipation & Massachusetts Civil War Soldiers presented July 4^th at Quabbin Civil War Remembrance Day

 
James Smethurst, Professor of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst will be a featured speaker at the Quabbin Civil War Remembrance Day on July 4 where he will focus on freed Blacks during the Civil War and their admiration and love for Abraham Lincoln as well as Black soldiers who served.  Professor Smethurst is the author of The New Red Negro: The Literary Left and African American Poetry, 1930-1946 (1999), The Black Arts Movement: Literary Nationalism in the 1960s and 1970s (2005), winner of the Organization of American Historians’ James A. Rawley Prize, and The African American Roots of Modernism: From Reconstruction to the Harlem Renaissance (2011). He is also the co-editor of Left of the Color Line: Race, Radicalism and Twentieth-Century Literature of the United States (2003) and Radicalism in the South Since Reconstruction (2006).

The “remembrances” portion of the day-long Civil War events starts at 2 pm in the Orange Town Hall, 6 Prospect Street.  Along with informal presentations and discussions where the public is invited to share stories, letters and diaries of ancestors or former area residents who were part of the American Civil War, additional speakers will include Elizabeth Peirce, curator of the Swift River Valley Historical Society who will speak on soldiers from the lost Quabbin towns of Dana, Enfield, Greenwich and Prescott.  Chuck Berube will be on hand as Abraham Lincoln, a role he plays in “Lincoln: The Musical” that will open on Saturday, July 7 at 7:00 pm.  Tim Waite will perform Mark Twain’s “The Campaign That Failed,”and Larry Buell will present Lucius Spooner, a 19^th century farmer from Petersham who lived through the Civil War.  Richard Sheridan, the chairman of the Orange Select Board and Linda Temple of the Orange Historical Society will read letters from Orange residents during the Civil War.  Members of the 15^th Massachusetts Civil War Infantry will also share stories of the people they represent.  Genevieve Fraser, the coordinator of the Quabbin Civil War Remembrance Day will serve as the master of ceremonies. 

          Additional plans for the day include a Black Powder shoot and discussion on armaments during the Civil War, along with reenactments starting at 9:30 am at the Orange Gun Club, 357 West River Street, to be followed by a Bar-B-Que.  And starting at 2:00 pm, the Orange Historical Society & Museum, 41 North Main Street, Orange, MA (2 doors up from Town Hall) will serve Tea, followed by a dinner and “Tin Type Show and Tell” at 5:00 pm.  For further information, contact Genevieve Fraser at Tel. (978) 544-1872.