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Illinois Stories to Air Macomb Civil War Walking Tour April 26, 27 and May 2.

April 25, 2012

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MACOMB, IL – Take a walking tour of Civil War-era Macomb from the comfort of your easy chair by tuning into Network Knowledge public television and the Emmy Award-winning show "Illinois Stories," which airs on WMEC (cable channel 6 or 22) in Macomb, WQEC in Quincy and WSEC in Springfield.

The program, which was a walking tour of select historic sites on the Macomb Courthouse Square and nearby Oakwood Cemetery led by Western Illinois University Assistant Professor of History Tim Roberts, will air at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 26; 6:30 p.m. Friday, April 27; and 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 2. The show is 30 minutes.

"Home Front: Life During the Civil War" is the current exhibition at Macomb's Western Illinois Museum (westernillinoismuseum.org). It runs through May 26. This is the starting point of Roberts' tour, which includes information about the Underground Railroad, the first black owned business in Macomb, the city's monuments and celebrations commemorating war veterans, early businessmen with conflicting opinions of the war and viewing the graves of a Union and a Confederate soldier.

Roberts, who joined Western's history faculty in Fall 2008, teaches courses on Civil War and Reconstruction, 19th century American history and trans-Atlantic U.S. history as well as the history of constitutional law. He has received several prestigious awards and fellowships, including those from Harvard, Bilkent (Ankara, Turkey) and the University of Oxford, where he earned his Doctor of Philosophy degree; as well as the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Andrew Mellon Foundation Research Society and the Virginia State Historical Society.

Mark McDonald is the Emmy-winning producer and host of "Illinois Stories," which features life and events in central and western Illinois.

For information about the Civil War Walking Tour and the Western Illinois Museum, visit westernillinoismuseum.org. For more information about "Illinois Stories," visit Network Knowledge, networkknowledge.tv.



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