Authors for Truth: Christopher James Bonner on

The Authors for Truth series provides Prince George’s County residents with opportunities to meet and hear from national authors whose works address social justice issues and promote equality.

"Remaking the Republic" chronicles the various ways African Americans from a wide range of social positions throughout the North attempted to give meaning to American citizenship over the course of the nineteenth century. Examining newspapers, state and national conventions, public protest meetings, legal cases, and fugitive slave rescues, Bonner uncovers a spirited debate about rights and belonging among African Americans, the stakes of which could determine their place in U.S. society and shape the terms of citizenship for all Americans.

Christopher Bonner specializes in African American history and the nineteenth-century United States. "Remaking the Republic," his first book, was published in 2020 by the University of Pennsylvania Press. His work appears most recently in the collection New Perspectives on the Black Intellectual Tradition (Northwestern University Press, 2018). His work appears in digital form at Muster, the blog of the Journal of the Civil War Era and at Black Perspectives, the blog for the African American Intellectual History Society. He was a regular contributor at Black Perspectives from 2014 to 2016. Bonner is an assistant professor in the University of Maryland College Park Department of History. Originally from Chesapeake, VA, he earned his B.A. from Howard University and Ph.D. from Yale University.

"Pay What You Can" suggested donation to the PGCMLS Foundation
Books are available for purchase from Politics & Prose

Presented by the Prince George's County Memorial Library System, in association with Anne Arundel County Public Library, Calvert Library, Carroll County Public Library, Enoch Pratt Free Library, and Howard County Public Library.