Bicentennial series Wednesday at JWCC to feature program on underground railroad

QUINCY — John Wood Community College (JWCC) and the Historical Society of Quincy and Adams County (HSQAC) are co-sponsoring a program on the underground railroad by Patrick Hotle and Terrell Dempsey at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, May 14, in the Mary Ellen Orr Auditorium, John Wood Community College, 1301 S. 48th. This is the fourth in a series of lectures in the monthly speaker series about the Adams County Bicentennial.

Hotle and Dempsey will share the research on slavery and abolition they discovered while working together on a book titled “Breaking America, The Radical Abolitionists of Quincy, Illinois and Missouri,” which is under peer review by the University of Illinois Press.

Hotle is a Culver-Stockton College professor emeritus in history and the author of scholarly works on British history and educational materials on the Renaissance, Russia and the Middle East. Dempsey, a partner in the law firm Dempsey, Dempsey and Hilts and a local historian, also wrote “Searching for Jim: Slavery in Sam Clemens’ World.”

Audience members are invited to the Historical Society’s Visitors Center at 9 a.m. on Thursday, May 15, 425 S. 12th, for a “Brew and Review” session where they can discuss the program and enjoy coffee and donuts courtesy of the Historical Society.

Every month during 2025, the public is invited to hear these varied and interesting presentations. The series is open to the public free of charge.

Further information is available at hsqac.org, jwcc.edu, www.adamsco200.org.or by contacting the Historical Society of Quincy and Adams County at 217-222-1835.