Anna-Lisa Cox, author of The Bone and Sinew of the Land: America's Forgotten Black Pioneers and the Struggle for Equality
Anna-Lisa Cox appears at Boswell with her breakout history of the long-hidden stories of America's black pioneers, the frontier they settled, and their fight for the heart of the nation. This groundbreaking work reveals America's Northwest Territory - the wild region that would become present-day Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
When black settlers Keziah and Charles Grier started clearing their Indiana frontier land in 1818, they were just looking to build a better life, but soon the Griers became early Underground Railroad conductors, joining fellow pioneers to confront the growing tyranny of bondage and injustice. Cox tells the stories of the Griers and others like them: the lost history of the nation's first Great Migration.
Black pioneers made a stand for equality and freedom, and their success made them the targets of racist backlash. Political and armed battles ensued, tearing apart families and communities long before the Civil War. These settlers were inspired by the belief that all men are created equal and a brighter future was possible.
Anna-Lisa Cox is an award-winning historian and author of A Stronger Kinship: One Town's Extraordinary Story of Hope and Faith. Currently a fellow at Harvard University's Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, she helped create two exhibits based on original research at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture, including one on black pioneers.
Tuesday, July 24, 7:00 pm, at Boswell:
Dan Kaufman, author of The Fall of Wisconsin: The Conservative Conquest of a Progressive Bastion and the Future of American PoliticsWisconsin native Dan Kaufman chronicles one of the most dramatic political upheavals in the country. The Fall of Wisconsin is an account of how the state’s progressive tradition was undone and turned into a model for national conservatives. Please note that C-Span will be taping this event for future broadcast. Please arrive early before our event starts so that you do not interrupt the taping.
For more than a century, Wisconsin has been known for its progressive ideas and government*. It famously served as a "laboratory of democracy," a cradle of the labor and environmental movements, and birthplace of the Wisconsin Idea, championing expertise in service of the common good. But following a Republican sweep of the state’s government in 2010, the state went red for the first time in three decades in the 2016 presidential election.
Laws protecting voting rights, labor unions, the environment, and public education have been rapidly dismantled. The Fall of Wisconsin is a deeply reported, neither sentimental nor despairing, account of the remarkable efforts of citizens fighting to reclaim Wisconsin’s progressive legacy against tremendous odds.
Originally from Wisconsin, Dan Kaufman has written for The New York Times and The New Yorker. Can't make our event? Dan Kaufman will be at Oconomowoc's Book sand Company on Wednesday, July 25, 2 pm.
Eric and Stephani Lohman, author of Raising Rosie: Our Story of Parenting an Intersex Child
Milwaukee parents Eric and Stephani Lohman appear at Boswell to share the powerful story of raising Rosie, their intersex child, and how they have navigated medical pressures and cultural ideas of gender. When their daughter Rosie was born, Eric and Stephani Lohman found themselves thrust into a situation for which they were not prepared. Rosie was born intersex - born with a variety of physical characteristics that do not fit neatly into traditional conceptions of male and female bodies. Immediately, the Lohmans were pressured to consent to normalizing surgery for Rosie, despite their concerns, and without being offered any alternatives.
Part memoir and part guidebook, Raising Rosie tells the Lohmans’ experience of refusing to have their child’s gender reassigned at birth, how they spoke about the condition to friends and family, teachers and caregivers, and how they plan to explain it to Rosie as she grows. This uplifting and empowering story is a must-read for all parents of intersex children.
Rosie’s story is featured in the National Geographic documentary Gender Revolution: A Journey with Katie Couric. Discussing the challenges the Lohmans have faced, Couric told Teen Vogue, “You have to be your own best advocate so that you can educate yourself about this issue. You don't have to be cowed into making a decision by a member of the medical community who may think you have to do things a certain way."
Eric Lohman, PhD. in Media Studies, is lecturer and researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, focusing on gender, race, and class in the mass media. Stephani Lohman, BS, BScN, works in health care and science as an infection prevention nurse and has degrees in chemistry, biology, and nursing.
Sunday, July 29, 2 pm at Milwaukee Public Library's Loos Room at Centennial Hall, 733 N Eighth St:
Ann McClain Terrell, author of Graceful Leadership in Early Childhood Education
Director of the Milwaukee Public Schools Foundation Ann McClain Terrell shares the story of her professional journey and the lessons she’s learned as an award-winning, nationally renowned early childhood educator.
Told in a narrative, inspirational, and practical way, this book shares the values that the author has held onto in order to be successful. It shares how one woman maintained her grace and quiet dignity while on her leadership journey and overcame the challenges and hurdles that she faced. This is not a theoretical book but rather, one that shows how theory and personal experience can be used and put into action.
Graceful Leadership in Early Childhood Education is a book to turn to when there is a challenge that needs tackling, when you need a boost of inspiration, or when you just want to reflect on your own journey.
Ann McClain Terrell was formerly Director of Innovation and Director of Early Childhood Education for Milwaukee Public Schools. She holds an MS in Educational Leadership from Cardinal Stritch University and an MS in Cultural Foundations of Education from UWM.
Terrell received the Black Women's Network Legacy of Leadership in Education Award 2008, the National Black Child Development Institute-Milwaukee Affiliate Early Childhood Recognition Award 2007, and the Community Brainstorming Conference Children's Advocacy Award 2004. She was selected as a 2000 Children's Defense Fund Early Childhood Leadership Fellow, was recently nominated for the Wisconsin Association of School District Administrators Bert Grover Advocacy Award, and in 2016 was named as one of the most influential African Americans in Wisconsin by Madison365.
Monday, July 30, 7:00 pm, at Boswell:Kelli María Korducki, author of Hard To Do: The Surprising, Feminist History of Breaking Up
Journalist, cultural critic, and Jackson Park, Milwaukee native Kelli María Korducki breaks the news about breaking up in her history of the surprising politics of romantic love and its dissolution, from Jane Austen to Taylor Swift.
Whatever the underlying motives, be they love, financial security, or mere masochism, the fact is that getting involved in a romantic partnership is emotionally, morally, and even politically fraught. In Hard To Do, Kelli María Korducki turns a Marxist lens on the relatively short history of romantic love, tracing how the myth of economic equality between men and women has transformed the ways women conceive of domestic partnership.
With perceptive insights on the ways marriage and divorce are legislated, the rituals of twentieth-century courtship, and contemporary practices for calling it off, Korducki reveals that, for all women, choosing to end a relationship is a radical action with very limited cultural precedent.
Kelli María Korducki, an alum of Pius XI High School, is Senior Editor of News at Brit + Co, and has written for the Globe and Mail, NPR, and Vice. In 2015 she was nominated for a National Magazine Award for ‘Tiny Triumphs,’ a 10,000-word meditation on the humble hot dog for Little Brother Magazine. She is also a former Editor-in-Chief of the daily news blog, Torontoist.
For more information about upcoming events, visit the Boswell Upcoming Events page.
*Yes, we are aware that Wisconsin is also the state of Joseph McCarthy.
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