The BLACK TIE AFFAIR, a dinner and dance, in the James Union Building at MTSU is scheduled for 7:00 o'clock Saturday night, June 11th. The event is sponsored by the African American Heritage Society of Rutherford County, Inc., and the guest speaker is Dr. Learotha Williams, Jr., professor of African American and Public History at Tennessee State University in Nashville.

Dr. Williams' current research includes slavery and emancipation in Tennessee, 19th and 20th Century African American Intellectual History, and Public History.

At Tennessee State University, he serves as the director of the North Nashville Heritage Project, an effort initiated in 2009 for the purpose of exploring, chronicling, and analyzing the history of North Nashville as viewed through the eyes of its residents.

He has written works that explore the lives of 19th-century African American politicians, African American education during the post-Civil War period, and the challenges faced by black presidents of Historically Black Colleges and Universities during the Civil Rights Movement. He is currently revising a biography tentatively titled, On Jordan's Stormy Banks: The Life and Times of Jonathan Clarkson Gibbs, Florida's First Black Secretary of State, 1828-1874, for the University of Arkansas Press and co-editing a book entitled A People's Guide to Nashville for the University of California Press.

All tickets are $50 per person. Contact Florence Smith (615-589-5034), Katie Wilson (615-556-7189) or Mary Watkins (615-556-1961). Deadline for tickets will be Tuesday, May 31, 2016