CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Historian James Oakes will speak on the topic “Becoming Lincoln: From Conservative to Radical,” in a lecture Feb. 11 on the University of Illinois campus.
The lecture, a day before the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, will begin at 3:30 p.m. on the second floor of the Levis Faculty Center, 919 W. Illinois St., Urbana.
Oakes is a professor of history at the City University of New York, where he also holds the Humanities Chair in CUNY’s Graduate Center. He is the author of “The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics” (2007), which shared the Lincoln Prize in 2008.
His other acclaimed works include “Slavery and Freedom: An Interpretation of the Old South” (1990) and “The Ruling Race: A History of American Slaveholders” (1982).
Oakes’ talk is part of the U. of I. history department’s Lincoln Bicentennial Lecture Series, and also part of a series of programs organized by the university’s Lincoln Bicentennial Committee.
More information about Lincoln-related events – including a film series and other lectures – can be found online.
