Join the Georgia Historical Society for a special conversation with Dr. Kevin Gaines, the Julian Bond Professor of Civil Rights and Social Justice at the University of
Virginia, and Dr. Stan Deaton, Dr. Elaine B. Andrews Distinguished Historian at GHS.
Together, Gaines and Deaton will explore how civic engagement changed America in the years following World War II. How did the right to vote and the meaning of citizenship expand and evolve during those years? How has the right to vote been challenged over time? What is the role of frequent, free, and open elections, and how have Americans participated in them? What does history say about the peaceful transfer of power?
We hope you’ll join us for a timely conversation about civic engagement and the ways Americans have participated in and changed America over time.
The program takes place on Wednesday, October 14, 2026, beginning at 7:00 p.m., at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, 441 John Lewis Freedom Pkwy NE, in Atlanta. The program is free and open to the public.
The event is free and open to the public. Please register here.
In partnership with
About Kevin Gaines
Kevin K. Gaines is the Julian Bond Professor of Civil Rights and Social Justice at the University of Virginia, with a joint appointment in the Corcoran Department of History and the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African American and African Studies. He is author of Uplifting the Race: Black Leadership, Politics, and Culture During the Twentieth Century (University of North Carolina Press, 1996), and American Africans in Ghana: Black Expatriates and the Civil Rights Era (UNC Press, 2006). His forthcoming book is The African American Journey: A Global History (Oxford University Press). He is a past president of the American Studies Association (2009-10).
His essays, columns, and reviews on African American history, art, music, literature, and culture have been published in major academic journals, including American Quarterly, The American Historical Review, The Journal of American History, American Literary History, Small Axe, Radical History Review, Social Text, and such newspapers as the New York Times and the Providence Journal. He has lectured at universities throughout the U.S. as well as internationally, in Japan, Korea, England, Ireland, France, Ghana, South Africa, and Australia.