Minnesota Book Award winning author Christopher P. Lehman discussed his new book, “It Took Courage: Eliza Winston’s Quest for Freedom,” on Feb. 4 in front of a large crowd of students, faculty and community members from the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University to mark Black History Month.
This keynote lecture was sponsored by the history department and multicultural student services.
Lehman addressed both the racial dynamics of Minnesota in the 1850s and the specific experiences of enslaved and abolitionist women in their fight against slavery, as well as competing versions of masculinity among men who wanted to keep Minnesota free of slavery and those who wanted to promote the state as a safe haven for wealthy enslavers.
Lehman, the author of seven books, is a professor of ethnic studies at St. Cloud State University and the inaugural recipient of the Ruth Riester Award for Historical Contributions to the Humanities by the Minnesota Humanities Center.
He has been a visiting fellow at Harvard University’s Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research. Lehman’s work has appeared in Minnesota History magazine and in periodicals for county-level historical societies throughout Minnesota. His book, “Slavery’s Reach: Southern Slaveholders in the North Star State,” won the Minnesota Book Award in the Minnesota Nonfiction category in 2020.
