Chavis Lecture Series

In 1799 at Washington and Lee, then called Liberty Hall, Rev. John Chavis became the first African American to complete studies at an institution of higher learning in the United States. In the fall of 2005, the Chavis Lecture Series began as an effort to acknowledge the tremendous scholastic accomplishments of Rev. Chavis and continue the tradition of multicultural scholarship at W&L that he began. Each month, usually beginning in October, a W&L faculty member presents a work pertaining to persons of color from various fields.

Past lecture topics have included:

• An Ethics of the Oppressed Telling Our Stories: School Desegregation in Western Virginia
• African-American Literature and the Sense of Place
• Imagining Integration: Charles Johnson and the Philosophical Black Novel
• Toni Morrison’s Narrative Theology: A Reading of Love