Author Diane Ciccone will discuss her new book, Into the Light: The Early African American Men of Colgate University Who Transformed a Nation, 1840-1930 on Thursday, June 20 from 7 to 9 p.m. at the West Windsor Arts Council in the Florence B. Hiller Studio, 952 Alexander Road.

On the eve of the bicentennial of Colgate University, Into the Light details years of research into the lives of the early African American men who attended Colgate when it was an all-male school. The book examines the lives of more than 50 African American Colgate men, including, Jonas Holland Townsend, a friend and confidante of Frederick Douglass and the first African American to attend Colgate; Samuel Archer, president of Morehouse; and Adam Clayton Powell, the Harlem Congressman.

A member of the first class of women at Colgate as well as a former councilwoman and the former director of the West Windsor Arts Council, Ciccone will be on hand to sign copies of her book. She now works as a practicing attorney and arbitrator in New York City, and was the producer of the award-winning documentary, Acts of Faith, which documents the first integrated planned housing development in New Jersey.