Historian to Speak

The UM History/Political Science Club will sponsor a lecture by historian Michael W. Fitzgerald April 19 at 7 p.m. in Moorer Auditorium.

Fitzgerald’s topic will be “Freedom Comes to Mobile, 1865 and After,” in which he will discuss the Reconstruction period in Mobile.

His work covers the years from 1865 until 1890, a time of great state and local political upheaval ranging from the enfranchisement of the freedmen to the disenfranchisement of the old Mobile establishment.

Fitzgerald is a professor of history at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minn. He graduated summa cum laude from the University of California, Los Angeles, with a bachelor of arts in 1977, master of arts in 1981 and doctorate in 1986.

Fitzgerald is the author of “Urban Emancipation: Popular Politics in Reconstruction Mobile, 1860–1890” and “The Union League Movement in the Deep South: Politics and Agriculture Change During Reconstruction.”

Fitzgerald will be available to sign his latest book after the lecture. For more information contact UM history professor Lonnie Burnett at 251-442-2319.