September will be a busy month for me with three talks scheduled, all in Fauquier County, all free and open to the public. And one includes a free lunch. That’s right, you can hear me and enjoy some pizza.

On Tuesday, Sept. 19, at 1 p.m., I’ll be in The Plains, Va., at the Afro-American Historical Association of Fauquier County. Karen Hughes White, the director, has supported me through two books and a decade of research. Her association’s vast archive contains two “gold coins” that were vital to telling the Condemned for Love in Old Virginia story.

One was the 16-page handwritten coroner’s report, done the day after Arthur Jordan’s lynching. The coroner took testimony from nine eyewitnesses who provided spellbinding descriptions of the events of that night.

The other was a referral to Alan Noll, a Minnesota resident whose wife was a distant relative of Arthur Jordan’s family. I wrote to Noll, and he generously shared much of the information he had gathered about the Jordans.

On Wednesday, Sept. 27, at 11:30 a.m. I’ll be speaking at Laurel Ridge Community College at 6480 College St., just outside Warrenton.

John Owens, library archivist, invited me to make a return visit to what was once known as Lord Fairfax Community College.

John was one of the first to invite me to speak in Fauquier in 2018, soon after publication of my first book, The Last Lynching in Northern Virginia. He was quick to issue a second invitation this summer after publication of Condemned for Love.

The school is doing something a little different with this visit. They’re offering free food to all attendees and calling it a Lunch & Learn.

“We decided on this type of program because often students and employees only have a lunch break free during their day,” Owens said. “Of course, free food does help attendance.”

Sally Voth has written a preview of my visit for the school’s website. You can read it here.  

Finally, I’ll be the guest of the Fauquier Historical Society at their History Museum at the Old Jail in Warrenton on Saturday, Sept. 30, from 6-8 p.m.

I usually illustrate my talks with a deck of PowerPoint slides. I depend on the slides and live in fear that someday the slide projector will break, though this has never happened through more than 40 talks.

Deb Miller, events coordination for the association, and I have agreed that I will speak from the jail courtyard without slides.

I think of it as similar to sitting around a campfire where I tell the story of what happened at the jail on the night of Jan. 19, 1880.

I see myself pointing to the big wooden door where the mob entered the building, to the cell where they removed Jordan, and to the residence where Colly Pattie tried unsuccessfully to help Jordan and his father, Horace Pattie, the jailer.

Please join me.