The next installment in the Old State House’s Brown Bag Lecture series is today at noon.  It features Dr. Kelly Jones discussing “Opportunity on the Edge of the South: Slaves in the Wilds of Arkansas.”

While white settlers were successful in establishing a harsh regime of slavery in Arkansas, the abundance of “wild” spaces lent opportunity outside the master’s gaze. Kelly Jones leads a presentation that draws from WPA ex-slave interviews and plantation records to describe how enslaved people in Arkansas used the land around them to resist the demands of their bondage and keep up social ties.. Jones is currently a visiting lecturer at the University of Central Arkansas and has a Ph.D. in history from the University of Arkansas.

The Old State House Museum is an agency of the Department of Arkansas Heritage.