On Thursday, March 5, at 6:30 p.m. at the Plaza Branch, 4801 Main St., Pulitzer Prize-winning author Steven Hahn presents Marcus Garvey Reconsidered, a retrospective on one of the most influential—and least-remembered—leaders of the early 20th century civil rights movement.

The presentation touches on Garvey, credited as the leader of the largest organized mass movement in black history and progenitor of the modern “black is beautiful” ideal, and why people were drawn to his movement. Additionally, Hahn contemplates as to why historians have been so reluctant to write about the leader.

Hahn, the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration, is the Roy F. and Jeannette P. Nichols Professor of History from the University of Pennsylvania. He is a specialist on the social and political history of 19th century America, the history of the American South, and the comparative history of slavery and emancipation. Hahn has received both the Allan Nevins Prize of the Society of American Historians and the Frederick Jackson Turner Award of the Organization of American Historians for his book, The Roots of Southern Populism: Yeoman Farmers and the Transformation of the Georgia Upcountry, 1850-1890.  Hahn has also been on the faculties of the University of Delaware; the University of California, San Diego; and Northwestern University; teaching a variety of undergraduate and graduate courses in American and comparative history.

Hahn’s presentation is co-sponsored by the History Department of the University of Missouri-Kansas City and the Black Archives of Mid-America.