David Wright Faladé, professor of English at the University of Illinois, a 2021-2022 Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center Fellow at the New York Public Library, and co-author of Fire on the Bach: Recovering the Lost Story of Richard Etheridge and the Pea Island Lifesavers, will join us virtually to discuss his book, Black Cloud Rising.
The book focuses on Richard Etheridge's time as a soldier in the Union Army's so-called African brigade, an outfit mainly composed of recently freed enslaved men who fought under General Edward Augusts Wild. The book chronicles the brigade's raid through coastal North Carolina to rescue those who remained enslaved.