In February, Person County Public Library celebrates Black History Month with a visit from an African American author and researcher with Person County roots. Dr. Shirley E. Faulkner-Springfield will visit the Person County Public Library to read from the 2018 book Serendipity in Rhetoric, Writing, and Literacy Research.

In a chapter titled “‘Oh, my God. He was a slave!’: Secrets of a Virginia Courthouse Archive,” Dr. Faulkner-Springfield recounts her discovery that her great-great grandfather Friday Faulkner was enslaved in Person and Halifax counties. She connects the Black Faulkners in Person County to the first White Faulkner who arrived in the American colonies in 1622.

Shirley E. Faulkner-Springfield grew up in Person County and earned a Ph.D. in writing and rhetoric from Bowling Green State University. She is an Adjunct Professor of Writing at North Carolina Central University and a Writing Specialist in the Legal Writing Center at the School of Law at North Carolina Central University and directs the writing program in the Duke Summer Biomedical Sciences Institute. In 2002, she self-published a family history book titled Searching for Friday: Faulkner Family History in Black and White.