Guests:  Anne Mitchell Whisnant, Ph.D. and Michelle Lanier, Dir. NC Div. of State Historic Sites

2 women who work in the field of public history share their insights with us. Grab a cup of coffee or your favorite tea and join the virtual conversation. Saturday, Mar. 19th. This is our 4th plenary membership meeting of the fiscal year (July 1 – June 30). It is also our Annual Membership Meeting. Zoom opens at 10AM for business. Program starts 10:30AM.

Anne Mitchell Whisnant (full bio here) and Michelle Lanier (full bio here)

• Whisnant is the principal investigator on a project to enhance documentation of African-American history in the Portsmouth Village National Register nomination. She recently completed a 3-yr. project (published 2021) with the National Park Service at the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site in Flat Rock, NC to examine the mountain estate’s connection to low-country SC slavery. The property’s historical significance is much deeper than the shrine to celebrated poet/writer Carl Sandburg that many in our generation may remember it. Sandburg purchased the property in 1945 and lived there until his death in 1967 at age 89. Dr. Whisnant is director of Graduate Liberal Studies at Duke University.
• Lanier has served as director for the state’s historic sites since 2018 and started as a curator in 2006. She uses her background as a folklorist, public historian, documentary educator, oral historian and cultural preservationist to connect communities to the rich and transformative power of North Carolina’s African American heritage. In 2017, Ms. Lanier was invited by Yale’s Gilder Lehrman Institute to join a collective of thought leaders in public history. In addition to her role within the NC Dept. of Natural and Cultural Resources, Ms. Lanier is a returning student. She is enrolled in the Human Geography Doctoral Program at UNC -CH. Her class cohort is 5 women; 3 are black women.