On June 9, 2017 History United hosted a community event exploring Virginia’s history of segregation, disfranchisement, and resistance from emancipation into the early 20th century. The talk took place at Danville’s historic High Street Baptist Church where, in July of 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. spoke to a crowd of Civil Rights activists. The 2017 talk featured Ed Ayers, recipient of the National Humanities Medal in 2013 and historian of the American South.