FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
Laura García-Culler, Executive Vice President
912.651.2125, or Email

Equiano, The African: Biography of a Self-Made Man

Savannah, GA - August 26, 2007. The Georgia Historical Society invites you to attend a free lecture on the life of former slave and noted abolitionist Olaudah Equiano. The lecture takes place this Wednesday, August 29, 2007, at 7:00 p.m. in the Coastal Georgia Center, 305 Fahm Street, Savannah.

In his day, Equiano was the English-speaking world's most renowned person of African descent. Equiano's greatest legacy is his classic 1789 autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. A key document of the early movement to ban the slave trade, it includes the earliest known firsthand description by a slave of the horrific Middle Passage from Africa to the Americas. Equiano was a sailor, adventurer, entrepreneur, and jack-of-all-trades. Equiano is featured prominently in the 2006 film, Amazing Grace, which chronicles the struggle within the British Parliament to end Britain's slave trade.

Vincent Carretta's biography of Equiano has received widespread critical acclaim. A professor of English at the University of Maryland, Carretta is currently a senior fellow at Harvard University's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research.

Copies of Carretta's recent works will be available for purchase, and a book signing will be held immediately following the lecture. For more information please visit www.georgiahistory.com or call us at 912.651.2125.

The Georgia Historical Society, headquartered in Savannah, is the oldest cultural institution in the state and one of the oldest historical organizations in the nation. It is the first and only statewide historical society in Georgia. For nearly 175 years, GHS has collected, preserved, and shared Georgia history through a variety of educational outreach programs, publications, and research services. For more information visit: www.georgiahistory.com.