Chicago’s Newberry Library will offer a six-week seminar on “The Black Presence at the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893,” to be held from 5:45-7:45 pm on Wednesdays starting on February 13 and ending on March 20, 2019.

Led by Christopher Reed, Professor Emeritus of History at Roosevelt University, the seminar examines the role of African Americans in the World’s Fair with the aim of questioning the narrative established by the pamphlet The Reason Why the Colored American Is Not in The World’s Columbian Exposition. Reed is the author of “All the World Is Here!”: The Black Presence at White City (Indiana University Press, 2002).

The Newberry Library is located at 60 West Walton Street in Chicago. Early registration opens on January 8, 2019., and more information about the seminar can be found at https://www.newberry.org/WS19ColumbianExposition

Frederick Douglass, who wrote the Introduction to The Colored American is not in the World’s Columbian Exposition, served as the Commissioner from Hayti (Haiti) for the 1893 World’s Fair.