Opening Roundtable
The Long Struggle for Civil Rights and Black Freedom
Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and today will reflect on African American political activism in the last half-century, putting recent struggles in the broader context of black people’s long demand for equality, which began in the holds of slave ships and survived the nadir of segregation and disenfranchisement. Part 1 Part 2
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Session 1
Who Is Black America?
Part 1 Part 2 This session on class and diversity within black America will use a historical perspective to examine changes to the meaning of “black” culture. An understanding of the forces that enabled a diverse community to act together in the past will help to consider whether twenty-first century black diversity could fracture the cohesion that allowed black America to fight so effectively for rights.
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Session 2
Slavery and Freedom
Panelists will discuss historiographical trends in the study of slavery and post-emancipation society, such as the re-conceptualization of slavery’s history from a comparative and then trans-national perspective at the beginning of the twenty-first century.
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Session 3
Race, Power, and Urban Spaces
This session will investigate aspects of the notion of “ghetto” or “segregation” as theoretical concepts, processes, and lived experience.
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Session 4
Capitalism and the Making and Unmaking of Black America
Part 1 Part 2 Highlighting the ubiquitous role of African American labor in creating the United States, participants will examine African American work lives throughout history, down to such recent phenomena as the impact of deindustrialization and increasing recent immigration of Africans and people of African descent from Latin America.
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Session 5
What is African American Religion?
This session offers an opportunity to explore religion in African American life through various lenses: as belief system and discursive formation, as denominational affiliation and institutional materiality, and as ritual and artistic expression.
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Session 6
Internationalization of African American Politics and Culture
Exploring the role of African Americans in the international arena will shed light on the breadth and limits of agency, the distinctiveness of freedom struggles; the development and intricacies of transnational alliances; and the confluence and divergence of political and cultural influence.
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Session 7
History, Preservation, and Public Reckoning in Museums
Panelists will explore the ongoing tension between historical scholarship and public culture, not only on the plantation, but also in the broader context of public history and memory. The session will reflect on the challenges of interpreting emancipation at house museums and the reactions of the public, including the descendants of the slave owners as well as the enslaved.
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Session 8
African American History as American History
Part 1 Part 2 Panelists will explore African American history as American history by addressing topics such as the changing imperatives of public culture, diasporic frames, and the evolution of democracy.
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