For Immediate Release: July 25, 2025
Media Contact: Jeanene Harris, Office of Historic Alexandria, jeanene.harris@alexandriava.gov
Political Violence Discussion at Benjamin Thomas Remembrance Event
Alexandria, Va. – Award-winning author and New York University history professor Dr. Steven Hahn will speak in Alexandria on August 8 about political violence and the ongoing effort to define democracy at the Benjamin Thomas Remembrance Program. The event will be held at Shiloh Baptist Church, 1401 Jamieson Avenue, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Doors open at 6:15 p.m.
The Alexandria Community Remembrance Project, part of the Office of Historic Alexandria, invites the entire community to this free event honoring Benjamin Thomas, who was denied due process and lynched in Alexandria on August 8, 1899.
“The Remembrance for Benjamin Thomas is a solemn call to confront our shared history and honor the lives lost to racial terror,” said Gretchen Bulova, Director of the Office of Historic Alexandria. “We are pleased to welcome Dr. Steven Hahn, whose scholarship challenges us to better understand the ongoing struggle for justice and democracy in America.”
Dr. Hahn’s address, titled Political Violence, Racial Terror and the Perpetual Struggle for American Democracy, asks us to reconsider what we think about this nation’s past. His Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, A Nation Under Our Feet, is a comprehensive history of Black politics before, during, and after the Civil War.
Dr. Hahn’s remarks will be followed by a book signing. A Nation Under Our Feet and Illiberal America: A History will be available for purchase.
Other Opportunities to Remember Benjamin Thomas
The Alexandria Community Remembrance Project’s July/August newsletter explores modern efforts to suppress education about race and systemic injustice through the lens of Benjamin Thomas’s 1899 lynching.
City Hall will be illuminated in purple, the color of mourning, to honor Benjamin Thomas.
Visit the Alexandria Community Remembrance Project’s website to learn more about what happened to Benjamin Thomas and Alexandria’s history of racial terror.
Visit alexandriava.gov/Historic to sign up for the monthly newsletter and to read more about the Remembrance Project, upcoming programming, and the history of lynching in Alexandria.
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About Dr. Steven Hahn
Dr. Hahn’s works include The Roots of Southern Populism: Yeoman Farmers and the Transformation of the Georgia Upcountry, 1850-1890 (winner of the Allan Nevins Prize and the Frederick Jackson Turner Award); The Political Worlds of Slavery and Freedom; and A Nation without Borders: The United States and Its World in an Age of Civil Wars, 1830-1910. Illiberal America is the second volume of a U.S. History Textbook, the first of which is titled Forging America: A Continental History.
About the Office of Historic Alexandria
The Office of Historic Alexandria preserves and shares the history of the City of Alexandria with eight museums, historic sites, archives, archaeology, tours, exhibits and public programs. Through powerful storytelling and confronting the City’s past, Historic Alexandria enriches the present and inspires the future. We enhance the quality of life for residents and visitors and serve as a partner in the City’s equity and inclusion initiatives. For more information, alexandriava.gov/Historic.
For reasonable disability accommodation, contact Nicole Quinn at historicalexandria@alexandriava.gov or call 703.746.4554, Virginia Relay 711.
If you prefer communication in another language, free interpretation and translation services are available to you. Please email LanguageAccess@alexandriava.gov or call 703-746-3960.