MGA’s Center for Middle Georgia Studies and the Middle Georgia Regional Library will host author Michael Thurmond on September 18 to discuss his new book, "James Oglethorpe, Father of Georgia: A Founder’s Journey from Slave Trader to Abolitionist."
Middle Georgia CEO highlighted the announcement on their website.
"According to a February 2024 Associated Press article, Thurmond was stunned by an inscription on Oglethorpe’s tomb, which read, 'He was the friend of the Oppressed Negro.' Although Thurmond knew that Oglethorpe had tried unsuccessfully to keep slaves out of the Georgia colony, historians 'widely agreed he was concerned for the safety and self-sufficiency of white settlers rather than the suffering of enslaved Africans.'
"But Thurmond spent the next nearly three decades digging deeper. And through his book, published earlier this year by University of Georgia Press, he 'makes a case that Oglethorpe evolved to revile slavery and, unlike most white Europeans of his time, saw the humanity in enslaved Africans,' the AP article reads."
Learn more about the book talk events.
