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Noted historian and author makes presentation A survey of 1908 riot

"Centennial of Fire," an address by noted historian and author Dr. Roberta Senechal, was presented at 7:30 p.m., Thursday, October 23, in the lobby of the Public Affairs Center at the University of Illinois at Springfield.

In this lecture, Senechal surveyed the course of Sringfield's 1908 race riot, and the reaction of the press and public, weighing the known facts in light of her later work on collective violence, in the United States and elsewhere.

Senechal's published works include the award-winning In Lincoln's Shadow, the only book-length study of the Springfield riot. Originally published in 1990 by the University of Illinois Press as The Sociogenesis of a Race Riot: Springfield, Illinois, in 1908, a reprint of the book under its new title is forthcoming from Southern Illinois University Press. She is currently an associate professor of History at Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Virginia, where she specializes in American social and urban history, the history of crime and violence, women's history in the United States, and African-American history.

Senechal's presentation is one of the keynote addresses for the 30th Annual Conference of the Association for Integrative Studies, hosted by UIS. It is also a program in the ECCE Speakers Series at UIS -- events that aim to exemplify engaged citizenship as part of the university’s effort to foster appreciation for and practice of diversity and the active effort to make a difference in the world.