This week on the Lectures and History podcast, we're bringing you a special feed drop from C-SPAN's America 250 coverage.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edna Field's Black joined fellow scholars for a conversation hosted by the Abraham Lincoln Institute, exploring Abraham Lincoln, and the events that set the nation on the path toward the Civil War.

The discussion was recorded at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C.

So good morning. So my name is David J. Kent. I am a Lincoln historian and the author of several Lincoln books, including my most recent Lincoln in New England in search of his forgotten tours, which just came out like two weeks ago.

But for today's purposes, I'm doing double duty as the executive committee and board member of the Abraham

Lincoln Institute and as the immediate past president of the Lincoln Group of the District of

Columbia. So the Lincoln Group of D.C. is co-sponsoring the event this year because of a special

program. About three years ago, we started encouraging

a variety of Lincoln groups to focus on Abraham Lincoln's commitment and adherence to the

Declaration of Independence and the American Founding, which is especially important in this 250th

anniversary year. So you can find out more about the Lincoln Group

at lincoln.org and the Lincoln and the American

founding at Lincoln 250.org.

So with that short introduction, it's my pleasure

to introduce the first outstanding panel for today's program.

The panel is entitled Paths to the Civil War,

and we'll examine how we got from the founding to the war that almost ended the nation.

And the award-winning panelists are Dr. Edda Fields-Black of Carnegie Mellon University. Her most recent book,

Cohnby, Harriet Tubman, the Combehee River Raid and Black Freedom during the Civil

War, was the winner of both the 2025 Gilda Lerman Lincoln Prize and the 2025 Pulitzer Prize, as well as many, many other awards,

including being named one of the best nonfiction books of 2024 by Bloomberg and one of the best

Civil War books of 2024 by Civil War Monitor Magazine.

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