The fall programs in the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation’s fourth annual Director’s Series will begin Wednesday at 7 p.m. with a presentation by Indigenous scholar and leader of the Kaw Nation Tribal Council, James Pepper Henry.
Henry’s presentation and the two other fall director’s programs take place in the theater at Jamestown Settlement.
For the series, Christy S. Coleman, executive director of the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, will sit down with Henry on stage for a discussion on how museums have interpreted and are presenting the Native American story.
A public historian and member of the Kaw Nation of Oklahoma and of Muscogee Creek heritage, Henry has served as director and CEO of innovative institutions including the First Americans Museum in Oklahoma City.
He initially was hired as the director and CEO of the American Indian Cultural Center Foundation that in 2021 opened as FAM. Last year he moved from overseeing daily operations at FAM, where he had worked since 2017, to director emeritus, focusing on fundraising and special projects.
The remaining Director’s Series program this year include:
• Oct. 21, Michele Norris, award-winning journalist and a former host of National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered.”
• Nov. 19, Rick Atkinson, Revolutionary War historian and bestselling and award-winning author. The first two volumes of his Revolution Trilogy, “The British are Coming,” and “The Fate of the Day,” published earlier this year have won critical acclaim.
Admission to the Director’s Series is $10 and must be purchased online in advance at jyfmuseums.org/directorsseries.
Two public lectures scheduled for this year will take place in the exhibition galleries at Jamestown Settlement and the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown. The Talking History events are included with museum admission.
• Sept. 20 at 2 p.m. at Yorktown: Carol Jarboe performs as the fictional character Maggie Delaney, an Irish indentured servant who gains passage to the Virginia Colony in the early 1700s, only to lose her family in the process.
• Oct. 4 at 2 p.m. at Jamestown. Williamsburg-based author and local historian Carson O. Hudson Jr. uses surviving records to discuss witchcraft in Virginia. An Emmy Award-winning screenwriter, Hudson also shows how the belief in witchcraft affected Virginia’s social, religious and material culture.
Talking History programs are included with museum admission. Advance registration is required and seats can be reserved at jyfmuseums.org/lectures.
Wilford Kale, kalehouse@aol.com