Each year, I cross my fingers that Wilson County Public Library will extend another invitation to me to speak during Black History Month. Over the past decade, I’ve talked about Dr. Joseph H. Ward, Wilson County’s enslaved people and free people of color, the Lane Street cemeteries, Rosenwald schools, African-American churches, Samuel H. Vick, Mary C. Euell and the Colored School boycott, the 500 block of East Nash Street, and researching African-American genealogy.

The call came again this year, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to share my research with the people for whom it most resonates. This February, I’ll be talking about historic black cemeteries throughout Wilson County. I surely hope you’ll join me.