First summer lecture series Saturday in Seneca

A descendant of a pair of prominent figures in African-American history will be the featured speaker for this weekend’s summer celebration lecture that Seneca’s Bertha Lee Strickland Museum has arranged for the Gignilliat Community Center. Shelby Henderson, manager of the Strickland Museum, says the speaker will be Nettie Washington Douglass, great-great granddaughter of the famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass and the granddaughter of Booker T. Washington, educator and adviser to presidents. Nettie Washington Douglass will speak Saturday during a program that will run from 11:30 am to 3 pm at Gignilliat and feature a performance by the Geechee-Gullah Ring Shouters of South Georgia. Another part of Saturday’s program will be the showing of an ESPN docu-drama depicting the life of Walhalla native Louie McKinney, the only African-American from Oconee to become a U-S Marshall and the first African-American in the country to serve as acting director of the U-S Marshall’s Service. Saturday’s program is free of charge, and Henderson invites everyone.