Join us for a conversation with A.E. Rooks, author of The Black Joke: The True Story of One Ship's Battle Against the Slave Trade, a groundbreaking history of the most famous member of the British Royal Navy’s anti-slavery squadron, and the long fight to end the transatlantic slave trade. Rooks's conversation partner will be J. Marlena Edwards, Assistant Professor of History, African American Studies, and African Studies at Penn State.

This event is co-sponsored by the Southern Delaware Alliance for Racial Justice.

We invite you to support the author by purchasing a copy of their book from Browseabout Books by clicking HERE. Call-in orders are accepted at (302) 226-2665 or you can stop by the store to purchase a copy. For store hours, please visit their website. Each copy comes with a signed archival bookplate.

NOTE: this meeting is being conducted through Zoom. You MUST REGISTER to receive instructions for joining the meeting.

This is an online event. Event URL will be sent via registration email.

A.E. Rooks hopes to always be a student of history, though that hasn’t stopped her from studying everything else. She is a two-time Jeopardy! champion with completed degrees in theatre, law, and library and information science—and forthcoming degrees in education and human sexuality—whose intellectual passions are united by what the past can teach us about the present, how history shapes our future, and above all, really interesting stories.

J. Marlena Edwards, assistant professor of African American Studies and History, completed a post-doctoral fellowship in the Africana Research Center at Penn State after earning a dual-major Ph.D. in African American & African Studies and History from Michigan State University. Her research interests include multiethnic African American identities, Cape Verdean and Afro-Caribbean migration, U.S. Immigration, and African diaspora histories. She's working on her first book documenting West Indian and Cape Verdean Immigrant communities and their lives after whaling in early twentieth century New England.