Author of fighting for hope. The National World War Ii Museum in new orleans hosted this discussion and provided the video. Greetings, everyone. I am senior director of programs at the National World War Ii Museum in new orleans and it is my pleasure to welcome all of you to what promises to be a Great Program on the history of africanamericans in combat in the United States from world war i to world war ii with everything in between and in the immediate postworld war ii years, and i am joined by three of our nations preeminent scholars on this subject. Whohost is dr. John morrow, is franklin professor of history at the university of georgia and is coauthor with our second panelist, who is professor of harlemst nyu, of rattlers in the great war, which is a fantastic book about one of the great africanamerican units in the First World War were. Our third panelist is Robert Jefferson junior, associate professor of history at the , andrsity of new mexico the author of fighting for hope. I
Markethybrid carnival. There were carnival rides and the like, but there were also people there selling objects. One of the objects was similar to this. I purchased it and i broke it. Again, it was not a philosophical thing, i just did not like the object. I do not remember the second object, or the third or the fourth. But i started collecting. And basically, have been collecting for several decades. I didnt start out with the anticipation of creating a museum. I was what most people would call an obsessive collector, and the idea of it becoming not just a collection as teaching tools, but actually a museum happened much later. So, not everybody where you grew up was collecting these items. Theres got to be more. What was it that made you keep doing it . David you know, i dont know. I have been thinking about that a lot. You know, my ancestors for four generations back, there are people from the bahamas, from trinidad, from spain, Indigenous People of this country. I guess what im say
By david wright. Its probably the definitive biography of douglas and especially of what is going on in the United States and the fight for racial justice. Nobody was more consequential and has been more consequential on the question of race in america. Boy ahead of his time. He was not only an abolitionist, passionist and former slave but he insisted from the earliest times in the 1840s, almost towards the end of the 19th century, that equality was the goal. And he would book no deviation from that. He was very clear about what the goal was. And so any of his words ring true today and i really recommend this biography to everybody is a long read but it is really powerful. Peter one of the things that i learned about Frederick Douglass this year was that is also very active secretary. Connolly yes he was very consistent and had a distinguished career and was able to talk to a mixed audience. In a time when that was unusual to say the least. And really its powerful when they had been id
[laughter] guest i think we have so little perspective on this moment that it is quite impossible to say. I think the perception that many people in the United States and, of course, also around the world have that this is an extraordinary uni shall time is something that we are in a time out of time will be a curiosity in the future. People will look back and wonder about that very sense i think it is kind of an interesting phenomenon. I think that will be studied. Host when you think about today, do you compare it to any other period in history . Guest no, you know, as a historian, im interested in analogies. I think we have a cognitive tendency to enjoy analogies to find one thing to be like another, all the time, just in the same way, you know, im the kind of person that sees likenesses in family members. I look at a new baby and say oh that looks just like great grandma so and so. But at the same time, even as i say that, i recognize that a lot of that is my need for familiarity.
Blackledge struggles against Police Violence in the wake of Police Murders of george floyd in minneapolis, Breonna Taylor in louisville, and the attempted murder of jacob blake in kenosha have once again sounded a call for black liberation while raising familiar questions about electoral politics and black freedom struggles. 50 years ago, his landmark election came on the heels of a 1967 rebellion in newark when the Police Beating of an unmarked black man struck an uprising against white supremacy. Amidst heightened organizing around racist urban renewal projects and educational injustice, the beating recalled countless Police Killings of black men in the city that had gone unpunished over the years and brought thousands into the july. At the july National Guard was called into uprisingto stop the which cost lives. In the following days, months, and years, the black and puerto rican communities leveraged the power and momentum of the uprising to build Community Power and organize succe