Battleground for Freedom:

Quintard Taylor, Ph.D.

Quintard Taylor is a specialist in African American history in the West with research and teaching experience now four decades long. His edited and authored works include In Search of the Racial Frontier: African Americans in the American West, 1528-1990, The Forging of a Black Community: A History of Seattle's Central District, 1870 through the Civil Rights Era, Seeking El Dorado: African Americans in California, The Making of the Modern World: A Reader in 20th Century Global History, and numerous scholarly publications. He is a recipient of national awards, holds historical leadership positions, and since 1999 is the Scott and Dorothy Bullitt Professor of American History, University of Washington, Seattle

Freedom's Frontier: Kansas and the Idea of African American Liberty, 1856-1877

Few states in our nation have an early history as closely intertwined with African American history as does Kansas. From the late 1850s Kansas Territory, noted as "Bloody Kansas" for the conflict between pro and anti-slavery supporters, also became the destination point for a small group of fugitive slaves. My presentation will outline the brief but exciting history that made Kansas a part of the Underground Railroad and the final destination for 12,000 African Americans who sought freedom there during and immediately after the Civil War. To them Kansas was not only a frontier which offered "free land," it was the state where John Brown first took direct action to free slaves, the state where African Americans first enlisted as soldiers in the Union Army and among the first states to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment. My talk will explore the meaning of that relationship between a place and a people.