Dr. Kelly Houston Jones, associate professor of history at Arkansas Tech University, will be the featured speaker at the Oct. 10 edition of the Second Monday Author Series at Ross Pendergraft Library and Technology Center.
The lecture will begin at 7 p.m. in room 300B of Pendergraft Library and Technology Center, 305 West Q Street in Russellville. Admission will be free and open to the public.
Jones will speak about her book “A Weary Land: Slavery on the Ground in Arkansas.” The 284-page tome is described by publisher University of Georgia Press as “the first book-length study of Arkansas slavery in more than 60 years.”
The description goes on to state that the book “looks at the lives of bonded Black Arkansans, their relationship with the land they farmed and the ways in which they created a new culture for themselves out of what was arguably the harshest phase of American slavery.”
“A Weary Land” won the 2022 John William Graves Book Award from the Arkansas Historical Association.
The paperback version of “A Weary Land” was recently released and will be available for purchase during the Oct. 10 Second Monday Author Series event.
Jones holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, a Master of Arts degree from the University of North Texas and a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.
A member of the ATU faculty since 2018, Jones was promoted to associate professor of history effective July 1, 2022.
Jones teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on topics such as Civil War and Reconstruction, Southern women’s history, the history of Arkansas and African American history.
Learn more about “A Weary Land” at https://ugapress.org/book/9780820360201/a-weary-land.
Learn more about the ATU Department of History and Political Science at www.atu.edu/history.
