The Annual Meeting

The Annual Meeting & Cincinnati History Lecture

AGENDA
4:00 pm RECEPTION
4:30 pm BUSINESS MEETING & 2026 SEASON ANNOUNCEMENT
4:50 pm CINCINNATI HISTORY LECTURE
America's First Black Socialist: The Radical Life of Peter H. Clark
Delivered by Dr. Nikki M. Taylor

Free to members. Reservations required.
R.S.V.P. by January 15.
For more information: 513.621.0717

Join us for the announcement of our 2026 Season and the Cincinnati History Lecture,
delivered by Dr. Nikki M. Taylor.

Politician, intellectual, educator, activist, and The Mercantile Library’s first African-
American member, Peter Humphries Clark (1829–1925) defied easy classification.

Complex and enigmatic, Clark influenced a generation of abolitionists and civil rights
activists. In pursuit of his foremost goal, full and equal citizenship for African Americans.
A pioneer educational activist, Clark led the fight for African Americans' access to Ohio's
public schools and became the first Black principal in the state, and Cincinnati Public
Schools’ first Black employee.

Dr. Nikki M. Taylor is a Professor of U.S. History. Born and raised in Toledo, Ohio, she
attended the University of Pennsylvania where she developed an interest in History and
an academic career. She earned her PhD in U.S. History (and a certificate in Women’s
Studies) from Duke University. Dr. Taylor has had a long academic career that has
spanned two decades, including a decade at the University of Cincinnati. She was the
recipient of several prestigious fellowships and grants, including a Fulbright (Ghana),
Woodrow Wilson, Mellon Mays (institutional grant), and a $5 million Mellon Just Futures
Grant. She authored 4 monographs including her most recent, Brooding Over Bloody
Revenge: Enslaved Women and Lethal Resistance (2023) –which won the Slavery
Archive Prize, the Letitia Woods Brown Prize, and was a finalist for the L.A. Times book
award.

Her three other books all focus on Cincinnati. They are: Driven Toward Madness: The
Fugitive Slave Margaret Garner and Tragedy on the Ohio (2016), America’s First Black
Socialist (2013) and Frontiers of Freedom: Cincinnati’s Black Community, 1802-1868
(2005), which is being honored with the best prize of all---the book is being made into a
documentary about this community.