I’m pleased to announce my forthcoming spring 2017 presentations on The Free State of Jones!
1. McCallie School
500 Dodds Avenue, Chattanooga, Tennessee, 37404
Chapel: Guest Speaker: Victoria Bynum, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Texas State University
2/27/2017 10:20 AM to 2/27/2017 10:45 AM
McCallie School is an All-Boys Private Boarding School and Day School, a Christian-based College Prep School.
McCallie seeks out and accepts boys from all ethnic, racial, religious, and socioeconomic backgrounds and places a high value on a diverse student body.
2. Tucson Festival of Books
Photo by Christopher Paul Cardoza
Author sponsored by University of Arizona Honors
Victoria Bynum is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History, Texas State University, San Marcos. Her research focuses on Southern dissenters, including families that opposed secession and the Confederacy. Subjects include the guerrilla band headed by Newt Knight in Mississippi’s “Free State of Jones”; the anti-slavery Wesleyan Methodist community of the North Carolina Quaker Belt; Southern women who defied the boundaries of Southern society; Southerners who crossed the color line socially and sexually; and African Americans who did not follow the dictates of Jim Crow. Her published works include The Long Shadow of the Civil War: Southern Dissent and its Legacies, The Free State of Jones: Mississippi’s Longest Civil War, and Unruly Women: The Politics of Social and Sexual Control in the Old South.
Scheduled events:
Class, Race, and Politics in America: The tightly intertwined issues of race and socio-economic status in the U.S. and how this is reflected in our politics.
Koffler Room 204 (Seats 304, Wheelchair accessible) 
Sat, Mar 11, 4:00 pm – 5:00 pm
History / Biography
Signing area: Sales & Signing Area – Koffler Patio (following presentation)
Panelists: Victoria Bynum, Nancy Isenberg, Patrick Phillips
Moderator: Ibram Kendi
The Hidden Civil War: A focus on campaigns in the Civil War’s western theater, including the story of the Free State of Jones, a Mississippi county that sided with the Union.
Integrated Learning Center Room 130 (Seats 143, Wheelchair accessible)
Sun, Mar 12, 11:30 am – 12:30 pm
Multigenre
Signing area: Sales & Signing Area – Integrated Learning Center (following presentation)
Panelists: Victoria Bynum, Peter Cozzens, Bruce Dinges
Moderator: Shelly Dudley
3. Civil War and Reconstruction Lecture Series: Dr. Victoria Bynum
Lynchburg College, Lynchburg, Virginia
When: April 5, 2017 @ 6:00 pm
Where: Snidow Chapel
1501 Lakeside Drive
Lynchburg, VA
24501
Cost: Free
Dr. Victoria Bynum will present a talk about The Free State of Jones, her book about Newt Knight’s resistance to the Confederacy in Mississippi, which became a major motion picture starring Matthew McConaughey. Dr. Bynum has been a pioneer in social and gender history of the Civil War Era. Her talk is the second in a series of talks at Lynchburg College about the Civil War and Reconstruction.
Categories: Uncategorized
Renegade South 
Good luck on your upcoming lectures ! Know they lead to lively question & answer period! Don H Loftin
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Thank you, Don!
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Dr Bynum,
I was wondering if you have found any connection between the Collins line of Jones County and the mysterious Melungeons of NC/SC? I believe Collins is a common surname of that group. When that group moved into Louisiana they were better known as Redbones. The topic is quite controversial among those that hold strongly to their theories. As a side note, you and I are related as my great grandmother was a Bynum born in Jones County. I enjoy your work very much and wish you all the best.
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Pete,
Thanks for your question. Many researchers have worked on connecting the Jones County line of Collinses to the Melungeons of Carolina, but to my knowledge, none have succeeded. There is a rather famous photo (among researchers, anyway) of a Simeon Collins Melungeon family, but the dates and identities of the photo proved it was not Jones County’s Simeon Collins. There may indeed be a connection, but we first have to prove the identities of Stacy Collins’s parents.
Vikki
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