Both lectures will be held on the Wheaton College campus in Blanchard Hall Room 339, located at 501 College Avenue in Wheaton.
Dr. Burton's first lecture is entitled "Lincoln, The Emancipation Proclamation, and Education" and will be held 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, February 27.
In this lecture, Professor Burton will use the sesquicentennial of the Emancipation Proclamation as an occasion to explore the significance of that critical milestone in history. Professor Burton will focus on the legacy of President Lincoln's understanding of liberty with particular attention to its implications for education. He reveals how the struggles of the newly freed people remind us that liberty requires education, and education demands liberty.
His second lecture is entitled "The Voting Rights Act & the Courts." This lecture will be held on Thursday, February 28, at 3:30 p.m.
Although the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act marked a great legislative victory in the struggle for political equality in the United States, it is now increasingly vilified. Professor Burton contends that historians have a responsibility both to the courts and to the general public to explain the history, purpose, and efficacy of the Voting Rights Act. Professor Burton will share how his Christian faith has informed his commitment as an expert witness for minorities in discrimination and voting cases.
Dr. Burton is Distinguished Professor of History and Computer Science at Clemson University. A nationally recognized expert on the history of race relations in America, Professor Burton has been involved as an expert witness in more than 100 discrimination and voting rights cases across the past three decades. He is also the author of numerous books, including The Age of Lincoln (Hill and Wang, 2008), which won the Chicago Tribune Heartland Literary Award for Nonfiction.
This lecture series, co-sponsored by the History Department and the J. Dennis Hastert Center for Economics, Government, and Public Policy at Wheaton College, is free and open to the public. For more information, e-mail history@wheaton.edu or call 630.752.5130.