Bellamy events include lecture at Thalian Hall

The Bellamy Mansion is celebrating its third annual African American Heritage Weekend starting today.

A lecture and book signing with Heather A. Williams, an associate history professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, will kick off the events. Williams' lecture, "A Vague Fear Came Over Me: Separation and Loss Among Enslaved African American Children," covers her current research on black families reuniting after the Civil War. The free lecture begins at 7 p.m. today in Thalian Hall.

On Friday, a historical highway marker honoring Robert R. Taylor will be unveiled in the formal parlors of the Bellamy Mansion at 3 p.m. Taylor, a Wilmington native, was the first formally trained black architect and first black graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

African-American History Day at the Bellamy Mansion will be held from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Saturday. Admission is $8 for adults and $4 for children ages 5 to 12. History tours and interpretation of slave life and foods are highlights of the day.

A free guided walking tour of Pine Forest Cemetery will complete the heritage weekend at 3 p.m. Saturday. Prominent blacks in Wilmington's history are buried at the cemetery with tombstones dating back to the 1840s. The tour will begin at the end of 17th Street.

- Angela Mack