The Georgia Room is presenting an author talk featuring Michael L. Thurmond speaking on his latest book, James Oglethorpe, Father of Georgia: A Founder’s Journey from Slave Trader to Abolitionist, at Switzer Library in Marietta on Monday, June 2 at 6 pm. The event is sponsored by the Cobb Library Foundation.

Thurmond’s biography of Oglethorpe “adds an inspiring new chapter to Georgia’s origin story,” said civil rights icon Ambassador Andrew Young. “Oglethorpe’s ‘intellectual friendships’ with Ayuba Suleiman Diallo and Olaudah Equiano, two formerly enslaved Black men, shaped the prehistory of abolitionism and fueled the advent of the modern civil rights movement.”

“James Oglethorpe’s effect on the abolition movement is succinctly and convincingly proven in James Oglethorpe, Father of Georgia,” said Oglethorpe University Library Director Eli Arnold. “I believe this book will initiate a reevaluation of both Oglethorpe and Georgia’s important role in both the antislavery and abolition movements.”

Thurmond conducted research for the book for more than two decades. He is also the author of Freedom: Georgia’s Antislavery Heritage, 1733–1865 and A Story Untold: Black Men and Women in Athens History.

The former DeKalb County CEO is the recipient of the Library Cham­pi­on of the Year award presented by the Georgia Public Library Service and Georgia Library Association’s Charles Beard Library Advocacy Award. The Athens native also previously served in the Georgia House of Representatives, as director of Georgia’s Division of Family and Children Services, Georgia labor commissioner, and superintendent of DeKalb County Schools.

Copies of James Oglethorpe, Father of Georgia will be available for purchase and author signings at the June 2 event. Switzer Library is located at 266 Roswell St., near the Marietta Square.

For information on the programs and resources of the Georgia Room, visit cobbcat.org or call 770-528-2333.