The University will begin celebrating the bicentennial anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase today at 4:30 p.m. in the E.R. “Bo” Campbell Auditorium.
A welcome from Chancellor Mark Emmert will kick off one part of a five-day celebration titled “The Louisiana Purchase: Faces and Cultures of Yesterday and Today.”
History professor Paul Hoffman will be the first speaker Wednesday with an address called “It’s Not on Jefferson’s Tombstone! Perspectives on the Louisiana Purchase.”
Panels, lectures, films and exhibits will be held throughout the day Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday morning in the Hill Memorial Library Lecture Hall.
Ellen Merrill, retired associate professor of German at Dillard University, and Jeffrey Sammons, professor emeritus of German at Yale University, will be two of the speakers featured on Friday.
The second part of the celebration, a folk and heritage festival, will begin Saturday evening at 1 p.m. with an opening ceremony introduction in the Reilly Theater.
A performance by the LSU and Southern University Gospel Choirs will be the first of a long list of musical acts.
The bands New Pine Grove Boys, Celtic Gumbo, Soul D’ou and Choupique also will play Saturday and represent a range of music from Cajun French to Irish.
The festival will continue through Sunday night with music, dancing, mask-making, basket weaving and more.
Parking and shuttle service will be available at the Visitors Information Center.
The event is sponsored by LSU, the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, the Louisiana Decentralized Arts Funding Program and the Stanford Group.