The Riley Institute and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Furman presented a summer lecture series entitled, "The Legacy of the Civil War and the Long Road to Civil Rights."

Session Two featured lectures by two academic experts on the Reconstruction and Jim Crow eras.

Bernard Powers, history professor from College of Charleston, spoke on the transitions for Black Charlestonians during Reconstruction, and Robert Korstad, professor at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy, gave historical accounts of the day-to-day life of Black Southerners during Jim Crow, based on thousands of oral histories obtained through Duke’s Behind the Veil project.

Speaker Biographies:

A. V. Huff, Jr., is a retired professor of history and vice president of academic affairs and dean at Furman. He joined the Furman faculty in 1968. Before becoming chief academic officer in 1995, he served as William Montgomery Burnett Professor of History and chair of the department. Huff holds an A.B. degree with high honors in history from Wofford College, a B.D. degree from Yale University, and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in history from Duke University.

A specialist on the history of the American South and of South Carolina, he has written and edited a number of books, including The History of South Carolina in the Building of the Nation and Greenville: The History of the City and County in the South Carolina Piedmont. He has served as chair of the South Carolina Commission on Archives and History, and has been a member of the editorial board of the South Carolina Historical Magazine and the advisory board of The South Carolina Encyclopedia. He is a United Methodist minister and has been historian of the South Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church.

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Bernard Powers is professor and associate chair of history at the College of Charleston. He teaches courses in American history and African American related subjects. Previously, he served as director of the graduate program in history for many years.

Powers has a special research interest in nineteenth century issues and
South Carolina. He is presently conducting research on African Methodism in South Carolina. His major monographic publication is Black Charlestonians: A Social History 1822–1885 (Fayetteville, AR: University of Arkansas, 1994). He was associate editor for The South Carolina Encyclopedia and has also published numerous book reviews, book chapters, and articles.

Powers received his B.A. from Gustavus Adolphus College and his Ph.D.
in American history from Northwestern University

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Robert Korstad is the Kevin D. Gorter Professor of Public Policy and History
at Duke University. His research interests include twentieth century United States history, labor history, African American history, and contemporary social policy.

Korstad’s publications include: To Right These Wrongs: The North Carolina
Fund and the Battle to End Poverty and Inequality in 1960s America; Civil Rights Unionism: Tobacco Workers and the Struggle for Democracy in the Mid-TwentiethCentury South; Remembering Jim Crow: African Americans Talk About Life in the Segregated South; Like a Family: The Making of a Southern Cotton Mill World.

Korstad received his B.A. and Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill.