Please join public historian Elvatrice Belsches as she leads the audience on an extraordinary journey into the free black experience prior to 1865 in both Richmond and Petersburg, Virginia. Her multimedia presentation will examine pathways to freedom, and include rare photographs, primary documents and riveting narratives that chronicle the legacies of the Forrester, Gilpin, Ruffin, Hill, Colson and Jarratt families. She will be signing and selling copies of her book after the program.

Elvatrice Belsches is a Richmond area public historian, archival researcher and author who specializes in chronicling the black experience in history. She served as a researcher on Steven Spielberg’s motion picture, Lincoln, and she is the author of Black America Series: Richmond, Virginia. Belsches lectures locally and nationally on the black experience in history in Virginia and beyond.