In 2009, physician, researcher, and science writer, Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee, published his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer. In it, he describes the story of cancer as a human story marked by ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance, but also hubris, paternalism, and misperception.
On November 6, 2019, Dale M. Brumfield delivered a Banner Lecture, “The Notorious History of the Virginia State Penitentiary.”
On October 23, 2019, Rick Atkinson delivered the J. Harvie Wilkinson, Jr. Lecture entitled “The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775–1777.”
On October 10, 2019, Karen Abbott delivered a Banner Lecture entitled, “The Ghosts of Eden Park: The Bootleg King, the Women Who Pursued Him, and the Murder That Shocked Jazz-Age America.”
On October 1, 2019, Kevin M. Levin delivered a Banner Lecture entitled, “Searching for Black Confederates: The Civil War’s Most Persistent Myth.”
On September 12, 2019, Brian J. Daugherity delivered the Banner Lecture, “Keep on Keeping On: The NAACP and the Implementation of Brown v. Board of Education in Virginia.” The lecture coincided with the museum’s exhibition, Determined: The 400-Year Struggle for Black Equality.
On August 29, 2019, Alexander F. Barnes delivered the Banner Lecture, “Play ball! America's Doughboys and the National Pastime in the Great War.” In 1917, there were two kinds of men in America: professional baseball players, and men who wanted to be professional ball players. With America’s entry into the Great War, these two groups merged as the United States built a mighty force to fight in Europe.
On August 22, 2019, Dr. Spencer Crew delivered the banner lecture, "Thurgood Marshall: A Life in American History."
Enslaved Virginians sought freedom from the time they were first brought to the Jamestown colony in 1619. Acts of self-emancipation were aided by Virginian’s waterways, which became part of the network of the Underground Railroad in the years before the Civil War. Watermen willing to help escaped slaves made eighteenth-century Norfolk a haven for freedom seekers. Famous nineteenth-century escapees like Shadrach Minkins and Henry “Box” Brown were helped by the Underground Railroad.
On July 1, 2019, Ben Wynne delivered the 2019 Hazel and Fulton Chauncey Lecture, "The Life and Times of Henry Stuart Foote, Southern Unionist and 'The Man Who Punched Jefferson Davis.'"
