About this event
January 29, 6:30 – 8:00pm
$25 General Admission, $20 Museum Member Admission
$150 VIP Table, $120 Member VIP Table (four people)
Not a member? Join today!
Museum Members are invited to arrive early for exclusive admission and bar access beginning at 5:45pm. Doors open to the public at 6:15.
How should we remember George Washington’s entanglement in slavery? Americans have wrestled with this question for nearly 250 years. Washington enslaved more people than any of his fellow Founding Fathers, yet he was also the only one among them to emancipate the people he held in bondage. This contradiction has shaped and reshaped how Americans remember Washington, slavery, and the nation itself.
Join historian and writer John Garrison Marks for a discussion of Americans’ long and complicated struggle to understand Washington’s legacy of slavery. Marks will explore how politicians, abolitionists, educators, activists, Washington’s former slaves and their descendants, and others have remembered, forgotten, and reshaped this history—and how these changing interpretations have reflected the political and cultural debates of their times.
John Garrison Marks is a historian and writer whose work explores history, museums, and the ways Americans engage with the past. He is the author or editor of three books, and his work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, TIME, Smithsonian Magazine, and elsewhere. His latest book, Thy Will Be Done: George Washington’s Legacy of Slavery and the Fight for American Memory (2026), explores how generations of Americans have thought and fought about slavery’s place in George Washington’s legacy over the past 250 years. Marks is also a leader in the public history field, serving as a senior staff member for the American Association for State and Local History, where he leads research, leadership development, and special projects. He earned a Ph.D. in history from Rice University.
History Happy Hour is a monthly evening program featuring presentations by historians, authors, and subject-matter experts on a wide variety of historical and cultural topics. Admission includes complimentary beverages and snacks.
Sandy Spring Museum, Inc. is supported in part by funding from the Maryland State Arts Council (msac.org), the Montgomery County Government, and the Arts & Humanities Council of Montgomery County.