Join us on Wednesday, September 30 at 7:00 PM as Dr. Edythe Ann Quinn shares from her new book Freedom Journey: Black Civil War Soldiers and The Hills Community, Westchester County, New York.

Through wonderfully detailed letters, recruit rosters, and pension records, Quinn tells the story of thirty-five African American Civil War soldiers and the United States Colored Troop (USCT) regiments with which they served. The men all came from The Hills, an African American community near present-day Silver Lake. Their ties to family, land, church, school, and occupational experiences at home buffered the brutal indifference of boredom and battle, the ravages of illness, the deprivations of unequal pay, and the hostility of some commissioned officers and white troops. At the same time, their service among kith and kin bolstered their determination and pride.

Dr. Quinn is a Professor of History at Hartwick College in Oneonta, NY. She received a Gilder-Lehrman Institute Fellowship for African-American Research and is an experienced teacher, lecturer, and researcher. She used materials from the White Plains Collections and other local libraries, historical societies, and archives in her research for Freedom Journey.