Virtual Author Series: Jacob Friefeld & Angela Bates

Author Series

Thursday, Jan 18, 2024 | 7 - 8pm

Immerse yourself in Great Plains and homesteading history during our first author series of 2024! Join us as we talk with Jacob Friefeld, author of The First Migrants: How Black Homesteaders' Quest for Land and Freedom Heralded America's Great Migration, and Angela Bates, founder of the Nicodemus Historical Society. Both Friefeld and Bates will share their insights into the rich history of Black homesteaders in Kansas and Nebraska during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

You can also order The First Migrants from our online bookstore here.

About Jacob Friefeld

Jacob K Friefeld is the director of the Center for Lincoln Studies at the University of Illinois Springfield. Friefeld was previously a historian at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois. Friefeld is the coauthor of Homesteading the Plains: Toward a New History (Nebraska, 2017), which received the Nebraska Book Award for Non-Fiction History in 2018. The First Migrants: How Black Homesteaders' Quest for Land and Freedom Heralded America's Great Migration was published in August 2023.

About Angela Bates

Angela Bates is the executive director of the Nicodemus Historical Society and a descendant of the original homesteaders of Nicodemus, Kansas. She has served on the Kansas Historical Foundation board of directors and is a member of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.