Karolyn Smardz FrostArcheologist Karolyn Smardz Frost will discuss her work digging through the history of Underground Railroad in a free public lecture Thursday on the UWindsor campus. Photo by Timothy Hudson

Archaeologist and historian to discuss local African-Canadian story

An archeologist and historian whose work tells the story of the African-Canadian and -American people who lived in our region during the 19th century, will give a free public talk at 7 p.m., Thursday, March 16, in Vanier Hall’s Katzman Lounge.

Karolyn Smardz Frost will present “Digging for the Promised Land,” a lecture sponsored by the Essex County Black Historical Research Society, the University of Windsor’s Department of History, and the Leddy Library.

Through her work in the community and with local history groups, heritage professionals, educators and others, Dr. Frost has ensured these stories live on into the 21st century. Her 2007 book, I’ve Got a Home in Glory Land: A Lost Tale of the Underground Railroad won a Governor General’s Literary Award for non-fiction. More recently, she co-edited with Veta Smith Tucker the collection, A Fluid Frontier: Slavery, Resistance, and the Underground Railroad in the Detroit River Borderland.

She just released her latest book, Steal Away Home: One Woman’s Epic Flight to Freedom – And Her Long Road Back to the South. It tells a tale of the life-long friendship between a fugitive slave woman and the Southern belle whose legal property she had once been.

A part-time professor at Acadia University, Smardz Frost is senior research fellow for African Canadian History at York University’s Harriet Tubman Institute.